Integrated Regional Assessment of Global Climate Change

Integrated Regional Assessment (IRA) promotes a better understanding of how regions contribute to global environmental change. This book provides a detailed treatment of the methodological challenges of IRA and a set of international examples illustrating the practice of such assessments at the regional scale. The first nine chapters address questions of scale, uncertainty, quantitative versus qualitative approaches, and particular conceptual frameworks for IRA evaluation. The next five chapters illustrate a range of IRA activities combining qualitative and quantitative approaches in innovative ways. The final five chapters review IRA as a process from an implementation perspective. This volume is the culmination of the START/CIRA/IHDP initiative: a collection of international research programmes, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). This is an important resource for researchers and policymakers in environmental science and policy.

Foreword; 1. Integrated regional assessment C. Gregory Knight and Jill Jäger; 2. Integrated regional assessment: overview and framework Brent Yarnal; 3. Integrated regional assessment: qualitative and quantitative issues Elizabeth L. Malone; 4. Scale and scalar dynamics in integrated regional assessments Colin Polsky and Darla K. Munroe; 5. Uncertainty management in integrated regional assessment Marjolein B. A. van Asselt; 6. Vulnerability of people, places and systems to environmental change Neil Leary and Sara Beresford; 7. Integrating climate change adaptation into sustainable development Thea Dickinson, Livia Bizikova and Ian Burton; 8. Stakeholders in integrated regional assessment Ann Fisher and Bernd Kasemir; 9. A framework for integrated regional assessment C. Gregory Knight, Ann Fisher and the CIRA team; 10. The global context of integrated regional assessment Jill Jäger; 11. The Asia-Pacific integrated model Mikiko Kainuma, Yuzuru Matsuoka, Tsuneyuki Morita and Kiyoshi Takahashi; 12. Integrated regional assessment for South Asia: a case study P. R. Shukla, Amit Garg and Subash Dhar; 13. Climate change and regional sustainability in the Yangtze Delta, China Yongyuan Yin; 14. From CLIMPACTS to SimCLIM: development of an integrated assessment model system Richard Warrick; 15. Why regional and spatial specificity is needed in environmental assessments Rik Leemans; 16. The SARCS integrated study of Southeast Asia: assessments with networks Louis Lebel; 17. Institutions for collaborative environmental research in the Americas: a case study of the Inter American Institute for Global Change (IAI) Diana Liverman; 18. The Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) program: crafting effective assessments for the long haul Roger S. Pulwarty, Claudia Nierenberg and Caitlin Simpson; 19. Integrated regional assessment: reflections on the state of the art Jill Jäger and C. Gregory Knight; Index.

C. Gregory Knight is a Professor of Geography and Professor of International Environmental Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University. He joined the faculty of Pennsylvania State in 1971, where he has served as a geography professor and department head, as well as Vice Provost and professor of international environmental affairs in the School of International Affairs. His work on resource management includes development in Africa, energy management in the United States, and global climate change impacts on water resources. He was founding director of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Integrated Regional Assessment, and is an honorary member and consultant to the Scientific Coordinating Center for Global Change in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Jill Jäger has worked as a consultant on energy, environment, and climate for numerous national and international organizations and has an extensive publication record. She was Deputy Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (1994–8) and Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (1999–2002). She was a member of the Core Group of the EU-funded MATISSE (Methods and Tools for Integrated Sustainability Assessment) project (2005–8).