English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
Add to Basket
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Journal Article

The meso scale as a frontier in interdisciplinary modeling of sustainability from local to global scales

Authors

Johnson,  Justin Andrew
External Organizations;

Brown,  Molly E.
External Organizations;

Corong,  Erwin
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Jan.Dietrich

Dietrich,  Jan Philipp
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Henry,  Roslyn C.
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/vjeetze

von Jeetze,  Patrick José
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Leclère,  David
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Alexander.Popp

Popp,  Alexander
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Thakrar,  Sumil K.
External Organizations;

Williams,  David R.
External Organizations;

External Ressource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (public)
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Johnson, J. A., Brown, M. E., Corong, E., Dietrich, J. P., Henry, R. C., von Jeetze, P. J., Leclère, D., Popp, A., Thakrar, S. K., Williams, D. R. (2023): The meso scale as a frontier in interdisciplinary modeling of sustainability from local to global scales. - Environmental Research Letters, 18, 2, 025007.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acb503


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_28176
Abstract
Achieving sustainable development requires understanding how human behavior and the environment interact across spatial scales. In particular, knowing how to manage tradeoffs between the environment and the economy, or between one spatial scale and another, necessitates a modeling approach that allows these different components to interact. Existing integrated local and global analyses provide key insights, but often fail to capture 'meso-scale' phenomena that operate at scales between the local and the global, leading to erroneous predictions and a constrained scope of analysis. Meso-scale phenomena are difficult to model because of their complexity and computational challenges, where adding additional scales can increase model run-time exponentially. These additions, however, are necessary to make models that include sufficient detail for policy-makers to assess tradeoffs. Here, we synthesize research that explicitly includes meso-scale phenomena and assess where further efforts might be fruitful in improving our predictions and expanding the scope of questions that sustainability science can answer. We emphasize five categories of models relevant to sustainability science, including biophysical models, integrated assessment models, land-use change models, earth-economy models and spatial downscaling models. We outline the technical and methodological challenges present in these areas of research and discuss seven directions for future research that will improve coverage of meso-scale effects. Additionally, we provide a specific worked example that shows the challenges present, and possible solutions, for modeling meso-scale phenomena in integrated earth-economy models.