Agricultural policies like the EU CAP are widening the scope to contribute to the Paris climate agreement and the Sustainability Development Goals. From the Commission's legislative proposals (June 2018) it is expected that the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be redesigned in line with this. Consequences are among others a move of the CAP to farm specific measures and an improved link to environment, climate change and ecosystem services. It is proposed that Member States and regions develop their own CAP strategic plan with more attention to the regional implementation of the CAP. This wider scope and measures with a focus on individual farmers ask for a new generation of impact assessment tools. Current state-of-the-art agricultural models are not able to deliver individual farm and local effects as they are specified at higher levels of aggregation. Making use of improved possibilities opened up by progress in the ICT area, our project MIND STEP will improve exploitation of available agricultural and biophysical data and will include the individual decision making (IDM) unit in policy models. Based on a common data framework MIND STEP will develop IDM models, including agent-based models, focussing on different topics in an integrated manner in different regional case studies. The IDM models will be estimated and calibrated using agricultural statistics and big datasets, drawing on established econometric and evolving machine learning techniques and using both traditional models of optimising behaviour and theories from behavioural economics. MIND STEP will closely cooperate with a range of stakeholders to co-create and apply the MIND STEP model toolbox to selected regional, national and EU wide policy cases. MIND STEP cooperates with other consortia under the topic to share ideas and innovations. Finally, MIND STEP develops an Exploitation Strategy and Plan to guarantee the sustainability of the project results upon its completion.

The Asian grasslands that stretch from the Eastern shores of the Caspian Sea to Manchuria in China are the largest continuous grassland biome worldwide and play a vital role in global carbon sequestration and in sustaining biodiversity. In recent decades, the integrity of the Asian grasslands became threatened by climate change and increasing land-use intensity, which in turn jeopardize the livelihoods of millions of residents that rely on the grassland resources for feeding their animals. To date, however, the spatial and temporal patterns of the changes in grassland resources across the region have not been systematically assessed. Moreover, it remains elusive how changing grazing intensity, climate variations, and institutional transformations have affected the grassland dynamics. This project aims to fill this gap by mapping the spatial patterns of vegetation changes across the Asian grassland biome for the past three and a half decades, and by quantifying the drivers of these changes. The dynamics of grassland greenness, as a proxy of plant growth, will be assessed using vegetation indices derived from remote sensing data. The changes in grassland greenness will then be statistically associated with climate data, subnational livestock statistics, and other control variables using spatial econometric panel analysis at fine spatial grain and annual temporal resolution. Combined, these analyses will shed light on the importance of climate variations and land-use intensity across institutional boundaries. Such insights are pertinent for deriving management options and policy solutions that simultaneously reduce grassland degradation and secure rural livelihoods in Asia. Besides the scientific goals, this action will provide a platform for the applicant and the host to share and transfer their knowledge and experiences in interdisciplinary research in human-environmental systems.

Aligned with the European leading efforts in climate science and multiple initiatives on climate action and sustainability, the project Towards Sustainable Land-use Strategies in the Context of Climate Change and Biodiversity Challenges in Europe (EUROPE-LAND) focuses on the integration of natural and social sciences to identify, develop, test and implement integrated tools to improve the understanding of the factors behind land-use decisions as well as the stakeholders’ awareness and engagement in terms of climate change and biodiversity challenges. EUROPE-LAND expects to go beyond the state-of-the-art and fill in specific gaps associated with integrated indicators for monitoring land use and land cover change, the effects of awareness and behavioural typologies on pathways to more sustainable land use across Europe, and interactive tools to explore land use under different scenarios and with participatory approaches. The project also intends to challenge the dominant narrative through its choice of case studies – particularly comparing Eastern and Western European situations, while also devoting special attention to the role of stakeholders in land-use decisions. EUROPE-LAND integrates 12 EU member states and consists of 7 work packages with tasks associated with assessing land-use behaviour across Europe, investigating the awareness of key land-use related stakeholders about climate change and biodiversity challenges and their willingness to contribute to addressing them, mapping land use and land cover patterns, and constructing integrated assessment modelling approaches. The project will also produce an interactive toolbox designed in a user friendly way, to allow users via the web to experiment with different land-uses, understand hidden connections between them and develop a holistic and systemic way of thinking. Combined with efforts on strategic stakeholder engagement and capacity-building initiatives, the project resources are expected to support sustainable land use and decision making at all levels.