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Scenario-based approaches provide decision makers with accessible storylines of potential future changes. The parameterisation of such storylines as input variables for integrated assessment models allows using models as a test bed for assessing the effects of alternative land use policy options in different scenarios. However, the potential of this kind of policy-screening analysis can be further improved by assessing the institutional compatibility of the policy options under review. The aim of this paper is to explore the added value of combining institutions-oriented policy analyses with scenario-modelling approaches for improved assessments of EU land use policy options. We describe an expert-based, stepwise process to combine four scenario storylines and two integrated assessment model approaches (CLIMSAVE & IMAGE-GLOBIO) with a procedure for institutional compatibility assessment. Among the subsidies we assessed were those for technology-driven intensification of agricultural production, which would contribute to decreasing demand for cropland across a range of scenarios. In regionalised policy designs, they also contribute to ecological effectiveness, and higher costs of governing. Subsidies to promote biomass production can have negative effects on ecosystems including land conversion, conversion of grassland into cropland as well as conversion of natural forests into managed forests. These effects can to some extent be mitigated by careful policy design which considers the institutional context and features cross-sectoral coordination. An integrated Ecosystem Services Framework policy could accommodate regionalised policy designs and cross-sectoral coordination, however, it can operate only under specific circumstances and needs particular efforts. Rural development approaches are another alternative which feature expansion of cropland by means of a large-scale, bottom-up transformation based on voluntary changes in behaviour, flexibility, participation, and local and regional collaboration. Apart ...

The role and design of global expert organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) needs rethinking. Acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all model does not exist, we suggest a reflexive turn that implies treating the governance of expertise as a matter of political contestation.

It is becoming evident that if societies are going to tackle climate change, significant changes in production processes as well as consumption patterns will be required. These changes cannot be achieved unless climate change is taken into account in the general and sector-specific policies essential for economic activities and general social development. In this report the degree of climate policy integration in different European countries, policy sectors and, in some cases, regions and municipalities is assessed. In addition, measures and means to enhance climate policy integration and improve policy coherence are analysed. This report shows that the inclusion of climate change mitigation and adaptation in general governmental programmes and strategies has substantially increased in recent years. Much more will be needed than hitherto, however, in terms of integrating climate into specific measures. Annual budgets, impact assessments and spatial planning are three examples of existing measures with significant potential to be climate policy instruments. In order to be efficient, the integration of both mitigation and adaptation aims would in the future need to recognize the interconnections between multiple governance levels, from the local to the international.

It is becoming evident that if societies are going to tackle climate change, significant changes in production processes as well as consumption patterns will be required. These changes cannot be achieved unless climate change is taken into account in the general and sector-specific policies essential for economic activities and general social development. In this report the degree of climate policy integration in different European countries, policy sectors and, in some cases, regions and municipalities is assessed. In addition, measures and means to enhance climate policy integration and improve policy coherence are analysed. This report shows that the inclusion of climate change mitigation and adaptation in general governmental programmes and strategies has substantially increased in recent years. Much more will be needed than hitherto, however, in terms of integrating climate into specific measures. Annual budgets, impact assessments and spatial planning are three examples of existing measures with significant potential to be climate policy instruments. In order to be efficient, the integration of both mitigation and adaptation aims would in the future need to recognize the interconnections between multiple governance levels, from the local to the international.

It is becoming evident that if societies are going to tackle climate change, significant changes in production processes as well as consumption patterns will be required. These changes cannot be achieved unless climate change is taken into account in the general and sector-specific policies essential for economic activities and general social development. In this report the degree of climate policy integration in different European countries, policy sectors and, in some cases, regions and municipalities is assessed. In addition, measures and means to enhance climate policy integration and improve policy coherence are analysed. This report shows that the inclusion of climate change mitigation and adaptation in general governmental programmes and strategies has substantially increased in recent years. Much more will be needed than hitherto, however, in terms of integrating climate into specific measures. Annual budgets, impact assessments and spatial planning are three examples of existing measures with significant potential to be climate policy instruments. In order to be efficient, the integration of both mitigation and adaptation aims would in the future need to recognize the interconnections between multiple governance levels, from the local to the international.

In a cross-disciplinary project (LEGATO) combining inter- and transdisciplinary methods, we quantify the dependency of rice-dominated socio-ecological systems on ecosystem functions (ESF) and the ecosystem services (ESS) the integrated system provides. In the collaboration of a large team including geo- and bioscientists, economists, political and cultural scientists, the mutual influences of the biological, climate and soil conditions of the agricultural area and its surrounding natural landscape have been analysed. One focus was on sociocultural and economic backgrounds, another on local as well as regional land use intensity and biodiversity, and the potential impacts of future climate and land use change. LEGATO analysed characteristic elements of three service strands defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA): (a) provisioning services: nutrient cycling and crop production; (b) regulating services: biocontrol and pollination; and (c) cultural services: cultural identity and aesthetics. However, in line with much of the current ESS literature, what the MA called supporting services is treated as ESF within LEGATO. As a core output, LEGATO developed generally applicable principles of ecological engineering (EE), suitable for application in the context of future climate and land use change. EE is an emerging discipline, concerned with the design, monitoring and construction of ecosystems and aims at developing strategies to optimise ecosystem services through exploiting natural regulation mechanisms instead of suppressing them. Along these lines LEGATO also aims to create the knowledge base for decision-making for sustainable land management and livelihoods, including the provision of the corresponding governance and management strategies, technologies and system solutions.