Microeconomic analysis of decisions on land use responding to climate change with emphasis on learning under changing risk

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stephan Dabbert
• Subject Area: Soil Sciences
• Term: from 2008 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 82511545

The objective of the project is to develop a bio-economic farm model that allows for simulation of farmer’s decisions under the circumstances of climate change. The model will depict the changing land-use, which will be triggered by climate change, and it should help to better understand the decisions of farmers. Following a sequential concept of decision making a mathematical programming model will be coupled with a management module that implements decisions on a daily basis. The management module reacts to daily weather variables in a rulebased way and exchanges information with a field scale and crop specific growth model. The results of a one-year simulation are then compared with the values that served as a basis of the development of the original farm plan in the mathematical programming model. The mathematical programming model is based on expected values and their distributions with particular emphasis on variables that depend on weather. From different sources changing expectations on the development of weather and climate risk can be derived. These will serve as a basis for Bayesian and rule based learning processes. The consequences of different learning strategies under changing risk on land use and farm economic success will be simulated. The economic model will be coupled with a crop model and a meteorological model within the Research Unit.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants