Demeter – A Land Use and Land Cover Change Disaggregation Model

Abstract

Demeter is an open source Python package that was built to disaggregate projections of future land allocations generated by an integrated assessment model (IAM). Projected land allocation from IAMs is traditionally transferred to Earth System Models (ESMs) in a variety of gridded formats and spatial resolutions as inputs for simulating biophysical and biogeochemical fluxes. Existing tools for performing this translation generally require a number of manual steps which introduces error and is inefficient. Demeter makes this process seamless and repeatable by providing gridded and land cover change (LULCC) products derived directly from an IAM—in this case, the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM)—in a variety of formats and resolutions commonly used by ESMs. Demeter is publicly available via GitHub and has an extensible output module allowing for future ESM needs to be easily accommodated. Funding statement: This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, as part of research in Multi-Sector Dynamics, Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program. It builds on previous work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Carbon Monitoring System and ACCESS programs under projects NNH12AU35I and NNH13AW58I, and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a multi-program national laboratory operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05- 76RL01830.