Integration and linkage of physical, sociological, social sciences to policy
Résumé
The aim of this session was to present methods and tools for Integrating Assessment (IA) to predict the impact of socio-economic policies, environmental measures and technological innovations on agricultural sustainability. Most of the IA tools developed to simulate farmers’ decisions on water allocation and land-use are used for specific purposes and locations. They are often developed to handle a specific question related to environmental, socio-economic, or climate change impacts on farm sustainability. This session focused on whether it is possible to construct methods and tools to simulate, through key socio-economic and environmental indicators, the main aspects of agricultural systems from field scale to large scale by linking models and databases. Such integrated IA tools can be used to identify which agro-ecological technologies will be favored by the implementation of policies and to simulate their impacts.