We published a new paper on Water Resources Research about coupling natural and human systems to model agricultural systems evolutions under change. We contribute a novel modeling approach to study the coevolution of irrigated agriculture under changing climate, advancing the representation of the human component within agricultural systems by using normative meta-models to describe the behaviors of groups of farmers or institutional decisions. These behavioral models, validated against observational data, are then integrated into a coupled human-natural system simulation model to better represent both systems and their coevolution under future changing climate conditions, assuming the adoption of different policy adaptation options, such as cultivating less water demanding crops. The approach was demonstrated on the Lake Como systems. More here

Giuliani, M., Li, Y., Castelletti, A. and Gandolfi, C. (2016), A coupled human-natural systems analysis of irrigated agriculture under changing climate. Water Resour. Res.. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1002/2016WR019363