Integrated Regional Assessment of Global Climate Change

This volume promotes an understanding of Integrated Regional Assessment (IRA), which analyses how different regions contribute to global environmental change.

C. Gregory Knight (Edited by), Jill Jäger (Edited by)

9781108447089, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 March 2018

426 pages
24.3 x 17 x 2.4 cm, 0.76 kg

'This excellent volume provides a sound and authoritative basis for the development of the next generation of integrated studies in global environmental change. It will be a particularly valuable resource for researchers in this field.' Hassan Virji, Director, START, The Global Change SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training, Washington DC

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.

Subject Areas: Geography [RG], Meteorology & climatology [RBP], Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning [R]