Integrated Modelling and Assessment of Agricultural Sustainability

Project Status: Completed (See Final Report Summary)
Type of Project: Scoping Study
Principal Investigator: Dr Keith Matthews, Macaulay Institute (Email)
Website

 

Objectives

The objective of the project is to assess the feasibility of implementing an integrated information system to support policy and end user relevant assessments of agricultural sustainability.

The sustainability of agricultural systems is of significant importance since the great majority of the land area of the UK is managed for agricultural purposes. This management has a range of direct and indirect impacts across multiple scales. It is widely recognised that it is possible to take many differing perspectives on sustainability assessment. This project seeks to identify the assessments of agricultural sustainability most relevant to policy makers and to support these assessments with an integrated modelling framework. The initial focus of the modelling framework will be at the plot and farm-scale since at these scales it is possible to conduct detailed case studies where the complex interactions between biophysical and socio-economic processes can be examined. The project will evaluate both the sustainability assessments and the computer models that can be used to provide the information needed. The testing of the computer models will account for the importance of the process, the availability of data to run and test the models and the feasibility of integrated operation.