Regional Footprint Research Articles

A UK-wide survey of community forensic services for adults with intellectual disability and/or autism.

Specialist forensic community teams for people with intellectual disability and/or autism have been developed, but little is known about their extent and delivery. To describe specialist forensic community teams for people with intellectual disability and/or autism across the UK. An online survey was sent to representatives of each UK Trust/Health Board providing adult mental health and/or intellectual disability services. Questions covered the availability, structure and activities of specialist community forensic services. Quantitative data were summarised and associations between access to specialist forensic teams and care were tested with Chi-squared tests. Thematic analysis of free-text survey responses was used to understand the challenges of providing community forensic mental health services for this group. A total of 49 out of 78 (63%) eligible Trusts/Health Boards responded, of which 25 (51%) had access to a specialist forensic community team. Teams operated either as part of a single Trust/Board (n = 13) or over a larger regional footprint (n = 12). The availability of specialist forensic community teams was associated with better access to offence-related interventions (χ2 = 15.1002, P < 0.005) and co-production of patient care plans (χ2 = 7.8726, P = 0.005). Respondents reported a wide variation in availability, expertise and perceived quality of community services. The availability of secure and generic in-patient beds, commissioning and legal barriers were also significant challenges in providing appropriate care. Coverage of specialist community forensic teams is not universal. There are indications that such teams are associated with improved care processes, but further work is needed to establish longer-term outcomes and the optimal model of care.

Are NHS cleft services in England ready for delegation to integrated care systems?

Cleft care services in the UK have been nationally funded since centralisation 25 years ago and during this time have been able to demonstrate improved clinical outcomes. Integrated care systems have been introduced into legislature as part of the Health Care Act of 2022 and will be responsible for the paradigm shift of allocating funds on a regional basis for cleft care services in England from 2024. The proposed population-based funding formulas present an opportunity to improve current inequities in cleft care, including access to speech therapy and adult services. However, the regional footprint of integrated care systems does not align with that of the centralised cleft service system and represents a threat to the standardised patient-centred care that has taken two decades to build. Awareness needs to be raised so that cleft care providers can proactively adapt to this mandatory change to service funding to ensure that clinical standards are maintained and continue to improve.

Water, air pollution and carbon footprints of conspicuous/luxury consumption in India

The literature on the environmental impacts of household consumption in India focuses on carbon and ecological footprints of income groups. This article connects conspicuous/luxury (C/L) consumption in India to its local, regional and global environmental impacts. We evaluate carbon dioxide (CO2), water, and particulate matter (PM2.5) footprints of consumption disaggregated into food-basic, nonfood-basic, and C/L consumption across expenditure deciles. We find that all three footprints rise, but at different rates, with increasing expenditure. Notably, CO2 and PM2.5 intensities of C/L consumption increase with income, unlike all other intensities of consumption. However, in all three footprints, there is a disproportionate rise in the top decile, which is driven by C/L consumption expenditure more than the pollution intensity of C/L consumption. These results imply that demand reduction measures in C/L consumption could have broad-based and deep environmental benefits, while pollutant-specific mitigation policies may face trade-offs with other environmental impacts. There is a need for further research on connecting local and regional environmental footprints with the actual impacts, to better understand the relationships between conspicuous/luxury consumption and multi-dimensional environmental impacts in developing countries context.

FISHGLOB_data: an integrated dataset of fish biodiversity sampled with scientific bottom-trawl surveys

Scientific bottom-trawl surveys are ecological observation programs conducted along continental shelves and slopes of seas and oceans that sample marine communities associated with the seafloor. These surveys report taxa occurrence, abundance and/or weight in space and time, and contribute to fisheries management as well as population and biodiversity research. Bottom-trawl surveys are conducted all over the world and represent a unique opportunity to understand ocean biogeography, macroecology, and global change. However, combining these data together for cross-ecosystem analyses remains challenging. Here, we present an integrated dataset of 29 publicly available bottom-trawl surveys conducted in national waters of 18 countries that are standardized and pre-processed, covering a total of 2,170 sampled fish taxa and 216,548 hauls collected from 1963 to 2021. We describe the processing steps to create the dataset, flags, and standardization methods that we developed to assist users in conducting spatio-temporal analyses with stable regional survey footprints. The aim of this dataset is to support research, marine conservation, and management in the context of global change.

Эмпирический анализ профессионального психологического отбора кандидатов на службу (обучение) образовательных организаций МВД России

Conducting a qualitative selection of candidates for service (training) in the internal affairs bodies is one of the effective factors in reducing staff turnover. The article presents an empirical analysis of the psychological selection of candidates for service (training) Kikot Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia named after V.Ya. Kikot: dynamics of the number of candidates entering the service (training); distribution of candidates by gender; "regional footprint" of candidates sent from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow; correlation of categories of professional psychological fitness; features of interaction of the Commission for Professional Psychological Selection with the Centers of Psychodiagnostics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia; generalization of risk factors of deviant (socially dangerous) behavior; proposals for improving the professional psychological selection of candidates for service (training) in the internal affairs bodies of the Russian Federation. The author comes to the conclusion that the resources for improving professional psychological selection are: the inclusion of psychiatrists of the Centers of Psychodiagnostics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the composition of professional psychological selection Commissions; increasing the candidate selection index (the number of candidates for one vacancy) by component units and the entry barrier (passing USE points); improving the criteria for determining risk factors of deviant (socially dangerous) behavior; improvement of organizational and staff structure of psychological work units in order to save personnel and professional personnel core - creation of departments for professional psychological selection.

Uncovering the Dynamics of Consumption‐Based Household Water Footprint in Response to Pandemic: The Hysteresis Effect of Disruption

AbstractThe socioeconomic disruption of COVID‐19 has strong implications for water management. However, it remains unclear how water use related to urban and rural household consumption responded to the outbreak. Taking 15 provincial regions in China for a case study, we quantified the variations of consumption‐based household water footprint induced by the first outbreak of the pandemic and tracked the responsive changes of interregional virtual water flows and control relationships. We found in many regions, the most drastic change occurred only a quarter after the major outbreak, when the average water footprint of urban and rural households decreased by 13% and 9%, respectively. This indicates the presence of a hysteretic effect of disruption to household expenditures. With the subsequent recovery of household consumption, the water footprints in many regions rebounded and even surpassed the historical values. Guangdong had a fast rebound in its net virtual water inflow related to urban households because of the fast recovery of its manufacturing and services activities. The pandemic‐related water footprint dynamics suggest not only the necessity of timely managing supply chains to prevent shortage of water and water‐intensive products, but also the importance of fostering consumption adjustments for conserving water in a post‐pandemic era.

Carbon Footprint and Its Composition: A Comparison between Domestic and International Tourists to Chenzhou City, China

This study aims to provide a scientific basis to address the strategies for sustainable development of urban tourism industry. By using the Life Cycle Assessment method, it decomposes tourism activities into seven different functional units (different tourism activities)-transportation, catering, accommodation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment and waste disposal-based on the expression of services provided by tourism activities, and determine the boundary range of each different functional unit in terms of the pathways and the functional orientation of the products (resources and energy) provided by the services of each functional unit. A “bottom-up” model is then constructed to measure the carbon footprint of tourism. Based on data collected from various sources for the period 2014–2019, it compares the composition and differences of domestic and international tourists’ carbon footprints in Chenzhou City, one of inland mountainous regions of central China, through several steps, including target and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact evaluation and life cycle interpretation. Results show that domestic tourists contributed more than 90% of the total annual carbon footprints to the city, ranging from 76.8809 × 106 kg to 194.6067 × 106 kg. Transportation is the dominant category, accounting for over 80% of the total carbon footprints. The study suggests that optimizing tourism resources, reducing transportation distances, and switching to low-carbon modes can effectively reduce the tourism carbon footprints in Chenzhou and similar regions. This study reveals the structural characteristics of the tourism carbon footprint and its influencing factors and provides valuable insights for policy development involving energy saving and low carbon tourism, thus enhancing the long-term sustainability of tourism development in an urban tourism destination like Chenzhou.

Role of greener energies, high tech-industries and financial expansion for ecological footprints: Implications from sustainable development perspective

Environmental recovery is one of the critical challenges for developed and developing economies worldwide. In this regard, developed and developing economies are constructing and implementing policies to achieve environmental sustainability without affecting economic progress – termed sustainable development. This study analyzes the influence of various financial, economic, technological, and greener energy variables on the environmental quality of developed (G7) and emerging (E7) economies. The current study employs panel data from 1990 to 2020 and uses robust panel estimation approaches for empirical analysis. Specifically, the diagnostic test asserted that slope coefficients are heterogenous and cross-section dependence exists in both panels. The cointegration association exists between the variables. Employing the System Generalized Method of Moment and panel Quantile regression, the empirical results reveal that financial globalization and renewable energy negatively influence the ecological footprints in both regions. Financial globalization (−0.043) is more aggressive in G7, and renewable energy (−0.258) significantly impacts E7 economies. In contrast, economic growth is harmful to environmental sustainability in both G7 and E7. Medium and high technologies (MHTI) and urbanization significantly affect ecological footprints in both panels. Urbanization growth harms developed regions' environment and benefits emerging economies.

PlaneFusion: Real-Time Indoor Scene Reconstruction With Planar Prior

Real-time dense SLAM techniques aim to reconstruct the dense three-dimensional geometry of a scene in real time with an RGB or RGB-D sensor. An indoor scene is an important type of working environment for these techniques. The planar prior can be used in this scenario to improve the reconstruction quality, especially for large low-texture regions that commonly occur in an indoor scene. This article fully explores the planar prior in a dense SLAM pipeline. First, we propose a novel plane detection and segmentation method that runs at 200 Hz on a modern graphics processing unit. Our algorithm for constructing global plane constraints is very efficient; hence, we use it in the process of each input frame for the camera pose estimation while maintaining the real-time performance. Second, we propose herein a plane-based map representation that greatly reduces the memory footprint of plane regions while keeping the geometric details on planes. The experiments reveal that our system yields superior reconstruction results with planar information running at more than 30 fps. Aside from speed and storage improvements, our technique also handles the low-texture problem in plane regions.

Modelling Hazard for Tailings Dam Failures at Copper Mines in Global Supply Chains

The global mining industry generates several billion tons of waste every year. Much of it is stored in liquid form, known as tailings, in large impoundments. Recent dam failures at tailing ponds with catastrophic outcomes have raised public concern, such that industry initiatives and investors are beginning to address the problem. So far, a lack of publicly available data makes an independent and comprehensive risk assessment challenging. We introduce a simple and transparent hazard indicator built from environmental proxy variables and screen a global sample of 112 copper mines for natural hazards regarding tailings dams. In a second step, material footprints of copper for the European Union and five major economies are estimated and compared using a Multi-Regional Input–Output model, shedding light on the regions of origin. Finally, hazard scores are linked to regional copper footprints to identify hotspots in supply chains of final consumption. The most hazardous mines are located in Chile and Peru including some of the world’s largest copper producers. China and the US have the largest copper ore footprints and per capita values in the US were 25 times larger than in India. The United States’ and European footprints are satisfied by domestic extraction to about 66 and 40 percent respectively. Copper from Poland contributes around 19 and 28 percent to supply chains of German and European final demand respectively and, as a consequence, Poland constitutes the main hazard hotspot for Europe’s copper supply chain.

Life cycle water footprint and carbon footprint analysis of municipal sludge plasma gasification process

In this study, the life cycle carbon footprint and water footprint of municipal sludge-to-hydrogen conversion by plasma gasification were analyzed. Results show that the carbon footprint of the process is 950 kg/GJ, and the water footprint is 3.21 m3/GJ in the basic scenario. The carbon footprint of the Rectisol units was the highest, accounting for 24.04%. Low-pressure nitrogen can be used for acid gas desorption to reduce carbon emissions. The life cycle water consumption comes mainly from electricity consumption (1.93 m3/GJ) and the cooling process (0.610 m3/GJ). Optimizing the electricity structure reduces the water footprint. The effects of 24 scenarios were investigated using sensitivity analysis. It was found that improving hydrogen efficiency or reducing electricity consumption can improve environmental performance. In addition, regional differences in the electricity structure can lead to differences in results. The carbon footprint of hydro-dominated regions (Sichuan, Qinghai, Tibet, and Yunnan) was only 20% of the basic scenario, while the water footprint was approximately threefold. This work presents the values of carbon emissions and water consumption within the specific scenario of municipal sludge-to-hydrogen by the plasma gasification process, providing support for its further development.

Maximizing drilling information in greenfields exploration: Linking the fabric and geochemical footprint of the basement to the surface in South Australia

Detection of mineral system footprints in regions under thick cover is challenging. The difficulties are enhanced in regions with low-relief landscapes that are deeply weathered. This research examines how information from a single drill hole in an underexplored region can deliver a significant amount of information to assist in greenfields exploration. This study describes the geochemical dispersion processes through >500 m of cover based on observations from drill hole CDP008, and explores the possibility of recognising landscape features that link basement features with the surface.Our study revealed that: (1) the lower fluvial sandstone package contains a geochemical footprint of the underlying basement rocks, produced by vertical and lateral geochemical dispersion; whereas (2) the overlying sediments do not record any footprint of the basement rocks; and (3) the top limestone units are a chemical barrier for vertical geochemical dispersion due to their lack of permeability.Basement features identified from magnetic data are mimicked by linear surface landscape features that lie above them, which may potentially be associated with vertical geochemical dispersion processes, linking the basement with the surface. Hence from the point of view of mineral exploration, surface geochemical sampling should target these particular neotectonic/reactivation-associated features of the landscape.We suggest that in areas of deep cover, neotectonics/reactivation surface landscape features have the highest prospectivity to detect deep basement geochemical signatures at surface. The findings from this study may therefore impact approaches to mineral exploration under cover in similar landscape contexts around the world, such as regions in West Africa, India, China and Brazil.

Quantifying the water-energy-food nexus in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao regions

Water, energy, and food are indispensable resources for regional social and economic development. The cross-regional resource transfer can increase the complexity in the coordinated management of water, energy, and food in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao regions. This study proposed a footprint accounting framework for cross-regional water, energy, and food nexus, which incorporates direct flows within territory and nexus flows embodied in final consumption. An environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model was established to quantify water, energy, food, water-related energy, food-related energy, energy-related water, and food-related water footprints in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao regions. The results indicated that direct energy footprint was 5.3 times of food-related and water-related energy footprints, and energy-related and food-related water footprints were 3.8 times of direct water footprint. Inter-regional trade plays an important role in the management of the water, energy, and food nexus in three regions. Hong Kong and Macao outsource huge water, energy, and food nexus footprints by importing freshwater, electricity, and food from Guangdong to satisfy local demand. The proposed footprint framework could serve as indicators or tools for measuring sustainable development goals, and the results could provide the basis for the coordinated resources management of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao regions.

Spatial and temporal changes of the ecological footprint of China's resource-based cities in the process of urbanization

The development of resource-based cities is under the dual stress of negative externality and urbanization caused by resource exploitation. In order to investigate the pressure faced by China's resource-based cities, this paper took the ecological footprint model to estimate the ecological sustainability in the urbanization process of China's resource-based cities from 2010 to 2016 on different scales. The results show that, the per capita ecological footprint of resource-based cities at the national scale is generally on the rise, and on the regional scale, the per capita ecological footprint of northeast and eastern regions is on the decline, while that of central and western regions is on the rise. Resource-based cities at both the national and regional scales are in the state of ecological deficit, which indicating that the development of resource-based cities in China has exceeded the local biological capacity during the urbanization process from 2010 to 2016. Since the small biological capacity is the main reason for the ecological deficit of China's resource-based cities at the national scale, and the ecological deficit at the regional level is closely related to the natural and social conditions of local development as well as the continued urbanization. Therefore, it is suggested that the local government should formulate scientific and reasonable planning, strengthen the ecological improvement of land resource, change the way of land use, implement energy conservation and emission reduction and promote the sustainable development of resource-based cities.

Water Footprint of soybean, cotton, and corn crops in the western region of Bahia State

ABSTRACT Water catchment to subsidize agricultural activities is estimated at 70% of world consumption. In the western region of Bahia, the main agricultural center of the state, there is intensive use of water for the production of agricultural commodities. In regions with high water demand, quantification of the use of this resource can be performed using anthropic pressure indicators, such as the Water Footprint. Thus, this work determined the Water Footprint of the soybean, cotton, and corn crops produced in the western region of Bahia State. In order to determine the Water Footprint, data of the environmental characteristics and crop production in the region were used, were obtained from different Brazilian public and private institutions. The calculation of Water Footprint of the crops was performed by the sum of the green, blue, and gray components. The average Water Footprint between 2012 and 2017 for soybean corresponded to 1,972.3 m3 t-1, with cotton at 1,825.2 m3 t-1, and corn 512.4 m3 t-1. The analyses of the results and the comparison with the values of the Water Footprint of other regions demonstrate that the edaphoclimatic conditions of the western region of Bahia are propitious to the development of these crops.

The regional impact of urban emissions on air quality in Europe: the role of the urban canopy effects

Abstract. Urban areas are hot spots of intense emissions, and they influence air quality not only locally but on a regional or even global scale. The impact of urban emissions over different scales depends on the dilution and chemical transformation of the urban plumes which are governed by the local- and regional-scale meteorological conditions. These are influenced by the presence of urbanized land surface via the so-called urban canopy meteorological forcing (UCMF). In this study, we investigate for selected central European cities (Berlin, Budapest, Munich, Prague, Vienna and Warsaw) how the urban emission impact (UEI) is modulated by the UCMF for present-day climate conditions (2015–2016) using two regional climate models, the regional climate models RegCM and Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem; its meteorological part), and two chemistry transport models, Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) coupled to either RegCM and WRF and the “chemical” component of WRF-Chem. The UCMF was calculated by replacing the urbanized surface by a rural one, while the UEI was estimated by removing all anthropogenic emissions from the selected cities. We analyzed the urban-emission-induced changes in near-surface concentrations of NO2, O3 and PM2.5. We found increases in NO2 and PM2.5 concentrations over cities by 4–6 ppbv and 4–6 µg m−3, respectively, meaning that about 40 %–60 % and 20 %–40 % of urban concentrations of NO2 and PM2.5 are caused by local emissions, and the rest is the result of emissions from the surrounding rural areas. We showed that if UCMF is included, the UEI of these pollutants is about 40 %–60 % smaller, or in other words, the urban emission impact is overestimated if urban canopy effects are not taken into account. In case of ozone, models due to UEI usually predict decreases of around −2 to −4 ppbv (about 10 %–20 %), which is again smaller if UCMF is considered (by about 60 %). We further showed that the impact on extreme (95th percentile) air pollution is much stronger, and the modulation of UEI is also larger for such situations. Finally, we evaluated the contribution of the urbanization-induced modifications of vertical eddy diffusion to the modulation of UEI and found that it alone is able to explain the modeled decrease in the urban emission impact if the effects of UCMF are considered. In summary, our results showed that the meteorological changes resulting from urbanization have to be included in regional model studies if they intend to quantify the regional footprint of urban emissions. Ignoring these meteorological changes can lead to the strong overestimation of UEI.

Mapping yeast mitotic 5' resection at base resolution reveals the sequence and positional dependence of nucleases in vivo.

Resection of the 5′-terminated strand at DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) is the critical regulated step in the transition to homologous recombination. Recent studies have described a multi-step model of DSB resection where endonucleolytic cleavage mediated by Mre11 and Sae2 leads to further degradation mediated by redundant pathways catalyzed by Exo1 and Sgs1/Dna2. These models have not been well tested at mitotic DSBs in vivo because most methods used to monitor resection cannot precisely map early cleavage events. Here we report resection monitoring with high-throughput sequencing using molecular identifiers, allowing exact counting of cleaved 5′ ends at base resolution. Mutant strains, including exo1Δ, mre11-H125N and exo1Δ sgs1Δ, revealed a major Mre11-dependent cleavage position 60–70 bp from the DSB end whose exact position depended on local sequence. They further revealed an Exo1-dependent pause point approximately 200 bp from the DSB. Suppressing resection extension in exo1Δ sgs1Δ yeast exposed a footprint of regions where cleavage was restricted within 119 bp of the DSB. These results provide detailed in vivo views of prevailing models of DSB resection and extend them to show the combined influence of sequence specificity and access restrictions on Mre11 and Exo1 nucleases.

Use of network analysis to study regional footprint for construction coating applicators

Construction industry spending in July 2020 was $1.3 trillion indicating significant growth in construction spending in the USA. This sector's growth can be attributed to strategic decisions of various organizations on broadening their company’s footprint into new markets. Such decisions require comprehension of job markets for successful expansion. This study focuses on utilizing post-occupancy evaluation of the quality of work on construction coating projects across the USA to understand the relationship between different regions and states and strategy to expand into new job markets. Network analysis utilized data from over two thousand owners collected over a period of four years. The study provides insights for construction-coating projects in relation to mobilization and footprint expansion. Specifically, the correlation of customer satisfaction for construction-coating contractors known as applicators working across the USA and understanding the relationship between region and states. The analysis identifies regions where jobs are performed by applicators from another region, highlighting business opportunities in the different regions across USA, while identifying poorly connected states. This study paves the way for future works that understand the footprint and connections with other states, especially for other trade applicators in the construction industry.

Environmental assessment of United States dairy farms

Dairy farms in the United States are diverse and although regional dairy production and farm strategy has been evaluated for environmental impact, a comprehensive national assessment is important to define national priorities for sustainable intensification. We estimated important environmental footprints of dairy production using process-level simulation and cradle-to-farm gate life cycle assessment. Dairy farms representing the sizes and management practices found in six regions were simulated with the Integrated Farm System Model (IFSM). Regional and national environmental footprints were determined as an average of all simulated farms weighted by the portion of milk contributed by each to the total. Nationally, dairy farms were found to emit 99,000 ± 8480 Gg CO2e of greenhouse gas (GHG), equivalent to 1.5% of the estimated U.S. total GHG emission, with a commodity-based intensity of 1.01 ± 0.09 kg CO2e/kg of fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM) produced. Fossil energy use was 242,700 ± 38,400 TJ, 0.3% of the U.S. total, or 2.48 ± 0.39 MJ/kg FPCM. Blue (non-precipitation) water use was 11,600 ± 2480 Tg, roughly 3.0% of the estimated U.S. total freshwater withdraw, with an intensity of 119 ± 25 kg/kg FPCM. While these environmental footprints represent a small portion of the respective national inventories, the dairy industry's contribution to reactive nitrogen (N) losses appears to be considerably greater. Losses of reactive N were estimated at 970 ± 133 Gg, with an intensity of 9.92 ± 1.36 g/kg FPCM where 66% of the total was in the form of ammonia (NH3). Although there are no national estimates of total reactive N loss, dairy farms were found to contribute 19–24% of national inventories of NH3 emissions. While strategies are available to reduce NH3 emissions, finding economical and sustainable solutions that do not result in pollution swapping remains a challenge for the dairy industry.

The utility of a hybrid GEOMOD-Markov Chain model of land-use change in the context of highly water-demanding agriculture in a semi-arid region

Land change simulation for highly water-demanding crops may prove a valuable tool to guide integrated land-and-water management in semi-arid regions facing water scarcity. We explored this premise by mapping and modelling past (1985–2015) and future (2015–2030) orchard development relative to water resources and other factors in Iran. We employed a hybrid GEOMOD-Markov Chain model whereby both the spatial allocation and quantity of orchard development were simulated. By 2030, orchard cover is projected to increase by 20% of its 2015 area, straining limited water resources. To gauge the accuracy of our projection of orchard gain to 2030, we assessed a comparable simulation of orchard gain for 2000–2015 according to the various components the Figure of Merit (FOM) metric. Misses, Hits and False Alarms of simulated orchard gain accounted for 1.84%, 0.45% and 0.74% of the study area respectively over 2000–2015 at a 200-m spatial resolution, for which the FOM was appreciable (15%) given the limited extent of simulated orchard gain and actual orchard cover across the study region (1.2% and 5.3%). With respect to orchard gain, spatial allocation error was more than land-change quantity error at 200-m resolution, at 1.48% and 1.10% of the study area, respectively. Predicting the location of agricultural change remains a priority and challenge for model utility, given scant agricultural footprints in semi-arid regions and their large draw on limited water resources. Results also indicate the importance of incorporating dynamic water availability and demand over the course of agricultural expansion, including shifts in the location preference amongst farmers. The integration of dynamic, agent-based models within our GEOMOD-Markov Chain framework is therefore methodologically appealing, but would adversely increase complexity for policymakers.