Browsing by Author "Arneth, Almut"
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Item Open Access Achievement of Paris climate goals unlikely due to time lags in the land system(Nature Publishing Group, 2019-02-18) Brown, Calum; Alexander, Peter; Arneth, Almut; Holman, Ian P.; Rounsevell, MarkAchieving the Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting average global temperature increases to 1.5 °C requires substantial changes in the land system. However, individual countries’ plans to accomplish these changes remain vague, almost certainly insufficient and unlikely to be implemented in full. These shortcomings are partially the result of avoidable ‘blind spots’ relating to time lags inherent in the implementation of land-based mitigation strategies. Key blind spots include inconsistencies between different land-system policies, spatial and temporal lags in land-system change, and detrimental consequences of some mitigation options. We suggest that improved recognition of these processes is necessary to identify achievable mitigation actions, avoiding excessively optimistic assumptions and consequent policy failures.Item Open Access Identifying uncertainties in scenarios and models of socio-ecological systems in support of decision-making(Cell Press, 2021-07-23) Rounsevell, Mark D. A.; Arneth, Almut; Brown, Calum; Cheung, William W. L.; Gimenez, Olivier; Holman, Ian P.; Leadley, Paul; Luján, Criscely; Mahevas, Stéphanie; Maréchaux, Isabelle; Pélissier, Raphaël; Verburg, Peter H.; Vieilledent, Ghislain; Wintle, Brendan A.; Shin, Yunne-JaiThere are many sources of uncertainty in scenarios and models of socio-ecological systems, and understanding these uncertainties is critical in supporting informed decision-making about the management of natural resources. Here, we review uncertainty across the steps needed to create socio-ecological scenarios, from narrative storylines to the representation of human and biological processes in models and the estimation of scenario and model parameters. We find that socio-ecological scenarios and models would benefit from moving away from “stylized” approaches that do not consider a wide range of direct drivers and their dependency on indirect drivers. Indeed, a greater focus on the social phenomena is fundamental in understanding the functioning of nature on a human-dominated planet. There is no panacea for dealing with uncertainty, but several approaches to evaluating uncertainty are still not routinely applied in scenario modeling, and this is becoming increasingly unacceptable. However, it is important to avoid uncertainties becoming an excuse for inaction in decision-making when facing environmental challenges.