Building on the research previously undertaken in the Ecosystems Services and Management and Water programs, the BNR Program fully exploits the potential for biodiversity research within integrated system analysis.
The program brings together different elements of land and aquatic ecosystems including agriculture, forests, and fisheries with water and the marine environment to inform global and regional policy assessments and provide robust science-based knowledge and foresight. The program aims to establish IIASA as an international community hub for biosphere research through innovative tool development; to lead the integration of biophysical-economic modeling with governance; to engage with stakeholders; and to facilitate community driven efforts. It provides policymaking support through core program and group research undertaken in the four BNR research groups.
BNR further engages in bilateral collaborations with other research programs and groups at the institute on key cross-cutting themes such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, the green economy, resilient food systems, transboundary governance, resource depletion and migration, and digital transformation.
News
10 May 2022
IIASA recognizes outstanding research contributions
IIASA recently instituted a new system of awards to recognize outstanding contributions towards meeting the strategic priorities and values of the institute. We are proud to announce that five IIASA research activities have been recognized in the inaugural 2022 award cycle.
06 April 2022
New IPCC Report: we can halve emissions by 2030
Between 2010 and 2019, average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history, but the rate of growth has slowed. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach. However, there is increasing evidence of the success of climate action, said scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Projects
fairSTREAM
CO-development of Methods to utilize uncertain multi-model based Information on freshwater-related hazards of Climate Change (CO-MICC)
Advancing WFaS East Africa: Scaling out resilient water and agricultural systems (scaleWAYS)
Growth and Fiscal Analysis of Risk Layering Strategies (GFRList)
Models
A model estimating forest growth, stock, harvest amount and comparing incomes from forestry and alternative land uses on a global scale.
The linkage algorithms solve the problem of linking models, e.g. sectorial and/or regional, into an inter-sectorial inter-regional integrated model. Linkage enables to avoid “hard linking” of models in a single code, which saves the programming time and enables parallel distributed computations of individual models instead of a large scale integrated model. Models linkage preserves the structure of the original models taking into account critically important details, which are usually missing in aggregate models.
Focus
01 June 2022
Water tomorrow
A new tool to assess water security can help nations plan for a challenging future.
24 February 2022
The number of tree species on Earth
Since humans have walked this planet, we have loved categorizing things and ecology is no exception. One of the most basic ecological questions has always been the simple question of “how many?”
Staff
Florian Kraxner
Research Group Leader and Principal Research Scholar
Petr Havlik
Research Group Leader and Principal Research Scholar
Piero Visconti
Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar
Taher Kahil
Research Group Leader and Research Scholar
Publications
Sperling, F., Havlik, P. , Denis, M., Valin, H. , Palazzo, A. , Gaupp, F., & Visconti, P. (2022). Toward resilient food systems after COVID-19. Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 4 e100110. 10.1016/j.crsust.2021.100110.
Ilyas, A., Parkinson, S. , Vinca, A. , Byers, E. , Manzoor, T., Riahi, K. , Willaarts, B. , Siddiqi, A., & Muhammad, A. (2022). Balancing smart irrigation and hydropower investments for sustainable water conservation in the Indus basin. Environmental Science & Policy 135 147-161. 10.1016/j.envsci.2022.04.012.
Zetterholm, J., Mossberg, J., Jafri, Y., & Wetterlund, E. (2022). We need stable, long-term policy support! — Evaluating the economic rationale behind the prevalent investor lament for forest-based biofuel production. Applied Energy 318 e119044. 10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119044.
Satoh, Y., Yoshimura, K., Pokhrel, Y., Kim, H., Shiogama, H., Yokohata, T., Hanasaki, N., Wada, Y. , Burek, P. , Byers, E. , Müller Schmied, H., Gerten, D., Ostberg, S., Gosling, S.N., Boulange, J.E.S., & Oki, T. (2022). The timing of unprecedented hydrological drought under climate change. Nature Communications 13 (1) e3287. 10.1038/s41467-022-30729-2.
Hunt, J. , Nascimento, A., Guzman, O.J.R., Furtado, G.C.D.A., ten Caten, C.S., Tomé, F.M.C., Leal Filho, W., Đurin, B., Lopes, M., & Wada, Y. (2022). Sedimentary Basin Water and Energy Storage: A Low Environmental Impact Option for the Bananal Basin. Energies 15 (12) e4498.
Leadley, P., Gonzalez, A., Obura, D., Krug, C.B., Londoño-Murcia, M.C., Millette, K.L., Radulovici, A., Rankovic, A., Shannon, L.J., Archer, E., Armah, F.A., Bax, N., Chaudhari, K., Costello, M.J., Dávalos, L.M., Roque, F., DeClerck, F., Dee, L.E., Essl, F., Ferrier, S., Genovesi, P., Guariguata, M.R., Hashimoto, S., Ifejika Speranza, C., Isbell, F., Kok, M., Lavery, S.D., Leclere, D., Loyola, R., Lwasa, S., McGeoch, M., Mori, A.S., Nicholson, E., Ochoa, J.M., Öllerer, K., Polasky, S., Rondinini, C., Schroer, S., Selomane, O., Shen, X., Strassburg, B., Sumaila, U.R., Tittensor, D.P., Turak, E., Urbina, L., Vallejos, M., Vázquez-Domínguez, E., Verburg, P.H., Visconti, P., Woodley, S., & Xu, J. (2022). Achieving global biodiversity goals by 2050 requires urgent and integrated actions. One Earth 5 (6) 597-603. 10.1016/j.oneear.2022.05.009.