Research project
BESTMAP - Behavioural, Ecological and Socio-economic Tools for Modelling Agricultural Policy
- Start date: 1 September 2019
- End date: 31 August 2023
- Funder: EU Horizon 2020
- Value: €3,995,811.25
- Partners and collaborators: helmholtz-zentrum fur umweltforschung gmbh - ufz/ univerzita palackeho v olomouci/ institut fuer weltwirtschaft/ centro de investigacion ecologica y aplicaciones forestales/ united kingdom research and innovation/ the rural investment support for europe foundation/ biosense institute - research and development institute for information technologies in biosystems/ pensoft publishers/ departament d'agricultura, ramaderia, pesca i alimentacio/ mundialis gmbh & co kg/ cambridge econometrics limited/ uk centre for ecology & hydrology/ technische universitaet dresden
- Primary investigator: Professor Guy Ziv
Sustainable and resilient agricultural systems are needed to feed and fuel Europe’s population in the long term. However, climate change and land-use intensification are threatening the EU’s agro-ecosystems. For instance, halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services due to landscape simplification requires a concerted effort to fundamentally redesign agricultural landscapes and the policies that dictate them.
The EU-funded BESTMAP project will develop a framework that links economic modelling with individual-farm agent-based models. It will quantitatively model, map and monitor the impact of policy scenarios on the environment, climate system, delivery of ecosystem services, biodiversity as well as socio-economic metrics such as employment.
With the help of an online dashboard and workshops with policymakers at EU, national and local level, BESTMAP will support the European Green Deal and enable the transformation of the EU agricultural sector post-2020.