CAP Reform: An Application of the NELUP Economic Model

The recent 'MacSharry reforms' to the Common Agricultural Policy alter significantly the economic incentives to farmers. Analysis using the economic component of NELUP suggests that the reforms are likely to have some impact on agriculture in the catchment of the River Tyne, but that some of the apparent land use changes would have occurred anyway under existing policy.     

The Economic Component of NELUP

The economic component of NELUP occupies a key position within the decision support system, modelling the response of agricultural land use to changing market and policy conditions. Linear programming was adopted as an appropriate modelling technique, satisfying constraints imposed by the objectives and structure of NELUP. The model was constructed using information from numerous datasets and has been validated against agricultural census data for the period 1980 to 1988. Forecasting runs have included investigation of the impact of the MacSharry reforms of the CAP on agriculture in the Tyne catchment.     

The Ecological Modelling System of NELUP

Within the NERC/ESRC Land Use Programme ecological change is assumed to be driven principally by agronomic activity. Land use change is defined as being of two types depending on whether there is a complete change of cover or a modification of an existing cover. Some agronomic activities lead to quantitative changes between land cover types and others to more subtle qualitative changes within land cover types. A modelling system based on three distinct models is described for predicting the effects of the two types of change in land cover on the distribution of plants, invertebrates and birds. The potential use of the system in analysing problems of land use change is illustrated using a simple scenario based on changing nitrogenous fertilizer regimes in lowland agriculture.     

NELUP: Some Reflections on Undertaking and Reporting InterdisciplinaryRiver Catchment Modelling

NELUP was a five-year academic research project into interdisciplinary river catchment modelling. The experience of staff involved offers useful insights into the intellectual and practical problems associated with interdisciplinary catchment management research and the dissemination and acceptance of results. In particular, it is suggested that: entrenched academic territories, derived from disciplinary and data differences, make managing an interdisciplinary team of researchers a non-trivial task; data errors, model complexity and model generality masked by a seductively sophisticated-looking DSS risk an illusion of technique; and that acceptance of decision support is hindered by practitionersand policy makers' suspicion of potential automated decision making by default.     

Empirical Searches of the NELUP Land Use Database

Areas expected to meet a particular specification may be located by matching the attributes of the area with corresponding attributes in the database. A set of rules is proposed for carrying out the search and producing the match. The procedure is illustrated by reference to three examples.     

The Potential Role for NELUP in Strategic Land Use Planning

The paper comments and speculates on the potential role for the NERC/ ESRC Land-use Modelling Programme in strategic land-use planning.     

Assessing the Performance of the NELUP Hydrological Models for River Basin Planning

The hydrological modelling capability within the NERC/ESRC Land Use Programme is built around two simulation codes, SHETRAN and ARNO. Together these provide a comprehensive tool for analysing the potential impacts of land use change on the hydrology of a catchment. Both models have been validated for five-year flow simulations on the prototype Tyne catchment. Results from the SHETRAN nitrate simulations are also presented with the limited available validation data. Finally, the value of the hydrology models is discussed in the context of river basin planning.     

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