DISTENDER_D5.1_State of the art impact models
Creators: name: Schneider, Karl
name: Reichenau, Tim
name: Ferreira, Joana
name: Relvas, Hélder
name: Rodrigues, Vera
name: Cartalis, Constantinos
name: Agathangelidis, Ilias
name: Polydoros, Anastasios
name: Silva, Ricardo
name: Viceto, Carolina
name: Rodrigues de Almeida, Jorge
name: Babker, Zryab
name: Zargar, Morteza
name: García de Jalón, Silvestre
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: This document provides a description of the DISTENDER impact models. It is to be understood as a working document, which will be updated and augmented within the course of the DISTENDER project to provide a suitable source of reference for the current and future user of the DISTENDER products and DISTENDER DSS. The main purpose of this document is to provide information on the potentials and limits of the impact models in an easily understandable form. The full documentation of the impact models goes beyond this document and is given in the appropriate technical and scientific description of the models used. Thus, this document is limited to the essential aspects of the model description in the context of DISTENDER. The impact models provide tools to assess the impact of changing climate, socio-economic development and coping-strategies upon the relevant socio- economic and environmental parameters. They also facilitate a link between the different climate scenarios analysed and the adaptation and mitigation approaches defined to address these climate scenarios. The assessment of climate effects as well as the measures are based on their effects and impacts on different essential components of the environmental system. As essential components within DISTENDER we identified six sectors which are of key importance for a sustainable development of our society. These sectors are air quality, urban climate (esp. urban heat), human health, energy, water and agriculture / forestry and other types (esp. plant production). These sectors are addressed by the different impact models described in the main chapters of this document. The rationale for the selection of suitable impact models is based on a compromise between scientific complexity and robustness / applicability. Terrestrial ecosystems as well as man and environment interactions are very complex. They show many feedbacks and interactions. Particularly the inherent dependencies, such as choice of agricultural crops, economy and water demand, or the natural water supply and plant productivity or the link between air quality and human health lead to a complex system of interactions and feedbacks, which can only partially be addressed with the available disciplinary numerical models. Thus, the choice of the selected impact models was made from the practical point of view to provide a) robust information on the effects of different climate change scenarios upon the environmental parameters or environmental services and b) to provide sensitivity and responsiveness to potential adaptation and mitigation measures. Thus, the model must be responsive to the given meteorological input but also to socio-economic parameters and scenarios. The sensitivity of a given impact model to a particular parameter varies from model to model. Therefore, key parameters which drive the model or affect the model output must be identified from the perspective of climatic as well as social economic drivers. A prerequisite of the models selected for DISTENDER is the transferability and applicability of the model. A transferable and applicable approach must be scientifically sound, it must be based on generally available data and it must be available to be used in the future beyond the current application and case studies of DISTENDER