Mathematical Sciences: Reduced-Form Modelling for Integrated Assessment

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Integrated assessment is increasingly used as a way to bridge the gap between science and policy in environmental problems. Models of each aspect of a complex problem are often too cumbersome to integrate directly. Instead, it is often more appealing to develop reduced-form models for each component model that are small enough to be comprehensible, flexible, and easily linked to one another. A reduced-form model provides approximately the same behavior as the model from which it is extracted in a much more compact and comprehensible form. The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate techniques to help modellers analyze their models and construct reduce-form models. The specific objectives are: 1. To design and prototype a modellers' workbench to facilitate specification and documentation of the inputs, outputs, and assumptions of existing models of various types and sizes; 2. To provide a range of existing and new sampling techniques to generate scenarios to exercise these models; 3. To provide a range of existing and new model analysis techniques to identify key inputs and parameters, identify nonmonotonic and regions of qualitatively different behavior, and so help develop reduced-form models; and 4. To evaluate these techniques experimentally by application to the development of reduced-form models and integrated assessment models, and so to provide guidance on which techniques are most valuable and for what kinds of models. This project is supported under the Methods and Models for Integrated Assessment funding opportunity.