Identify useful variables and assemble metadata

Subtask Description:
Document the simulation model.

Action points of the implementation:

Area:
Himmerfjärden , Sweden

Policy Issue:
Eutrophication status and reduction.

Human Activities:
Urban sewage discharge, agriculture and industrial activity, tourism.

General Information:
Nutrient loading has caused increased turbidity, loss of biodiversity (including submerged aquatic vegetation), deep water oxygen deficiency, phytoplankton blooms and biodiversity loss. The main stakeholder concerns are connected with tourism, recreational activities and nature enjoyment, and the sustainable implementation of WFD that poses economic challenges for several activities in the area.

Example of Implementation:

Integrating the sub-models
The most crucial coming step for the Himmerfjärden model is to merge the ecological and social/economic model. This will be further developed in the Appraisal Step. Overall, input data such as economic estimations will be refined and new empirical data will be available for both economic and social modelling. The functions and components in the model will be refined to reflect dynamic relationships. It will also be of great interest to find additional ways of creating feedback loops in the model (see below).

Social system- Participation function
The questionnaire has been developed and a pilot survey is presently carried out. After potentially necessary revisions the main survey was executed in the beginning of 2009. The result of the questionnaire study were processed and included in the EXTEND model.

Economic system
A search for more refined empirical economic data is ongoing and aimed at improving the estimations of costs and benefits. The current cost and benefit estimations will be replaced by more complex and realistic relationships. With regard to cost data, an important step is to include marginal cost functions whenever possible. Furthermore, we are aiming at adding a cost-minimization module, which will enable the identification of cost-effective combinations of policy options. Research is already underway to identify possible ways to develop the benefit estimations by adding the feature of diminishing marginal utility for secchi depth improvements. It will also likely be possible to introduce dynamic elements in the economic model by relating the growth of population and income over time to recreational demand in the SSA.

Contact: Jakob Walve, jakob.walve@ecology.su.se