What are the effects of Agro-Ecological Zones and land use region boundaries on land resource projection using the Global Change Assessment Model?

Di Vittorio, Alan V., Kyle, Page and Collins, William D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4463-9848 (2016) What are the effects of Agro-Ecological Zones and land use region boundaries on land resource projection using the Global Change Assessment Model? Environmental Modelling and Software, 85. pp. 246-265. ISSN 1364-8152

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Abstract

Understanding potential impacts of climate change is complicated by spatially mismatched land representations between gridded datasets and models, and land use models with larger regions defined by geopolitical and/or biophysical criteria. Here we quantify the sensitivity of Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) outputs to the delineation of Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs), which are normally based on historical (1961–1990) climate. We reconstruct GCAM's land regions using projected (2071–2100) climate, and find large differences in estimated future land use that correspond with differences in agricultural commodity prices and production volumes. Importantly, historically delineated AEZs experience spatially heterogeneous climate impacts over time, and do not necessarily provide more homogenous initial land productivity than projected AEZs. We conclude that non-climatic criteria for land use region delineation are likely preferable for modeling land use change in the context of climate change, and that uncertainty associated with land delineation needs to be quantified.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Publisher Copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd
Uncontrolled Keywords:	aez,agro-ecological zone,climate change,gcam,integrated assessment model,land use,scale,software,environmental engineering,ecological modelling,sdg 13 - climate action,sdg 15 - life on land ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1700/1712
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	06 Jul 2026 14:08
Last Modified:	12 Jul 2026 23:03
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103634
DOI:	10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.08.016

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