Assessing Climate Change Effects on Land use and Ecosystems: from Regional Analysis to the European Scale (ACCELERATES)
This three-year project carried out between 2001 and 2004 aimed to assess the vulnerability of European agroecosystems to environmental change.
The project examined:
- How climate, policy and socio-economic pressures drive changes in agricultural land use
- How agricultural land use and climate change affect biological resources
- The vulnerability of agroecosystems, based on economic and environmental considerations.
The project aims:
- Enhance our understanding of the processes of agricultural land use change
- Enhance our understanding of the relationship between land use and species distribution
- Identify agroecosystems that are sensitive to change
- Evaluate whether an integrated approach can be developed for the conservation and sustainable development of agroecosystem
- Examine policy mechanisms that could be used to reduce undesirable changes in agroecosystems and biodiversity.
The ECI are particularly involved in the modelling of the impacts of change in climate and agricultural systems on species from a range of habitats