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Data and models for exploring sustainability of human well-being in global environmental change

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Abstract

This position paper proposes a vision for the research activity about sustainability in global environmental change (GEC) taking place in the FuturICT flagship project. This activity will be organised in an “Exploratory”, gathering a core network of European scientists from ICT, social simulation, complex systems, economics, demographics, Earth system science. These research teams will collaborate in building a self-organising network of data sources and models about GEC and in using new facilities fostering stakeholder participation. We develop examples of concrete directions for this research: world wide virtual population with demographic and some economic descriptors, ecosystem services production and distribution, governance systems at various scales.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA), Paris, France

    G. Deffuant, I. Alvarez, O. Barreteau, F. Jabot & C. Rougé

  2. Netherlands Environmental Agency (PBL) – Utrecht Sustainability Institute (USI), Utrecht, The Netherlands

    B. de Vries

  3. Center for Policy Modelling, Manchester, UK

    B. Edmonds

  4. Centre for Research in Social Simulation, University of Surrey, Surrey, UK

    N. Gilbert

  5. The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland

    N. Gotts

  6. Alterra, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    S. Janssen

  7. The Finninsh Environment Institute, Syke, Finland

    M. Hilden

  8. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany

    O. Kolditz

  9. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

    D. Murray-Rust

  10. Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Ispra, Italy

    P. Smits

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  1. G. Deffuant
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Deffuant, G., Alvarez, I., Barreteau, O. et al. Data and models for exploring sustainability of human well-being in global environmental change. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 214, 519–545 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2012-01704-2

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