Demeter – A Land Use and Land Cover Change Disaggregation Model. Issue 1 (20th April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vernon, Chris R.; Le Page, Yannick; Chen, Min; Huang, Maoyi; Calvin, Katherine V.; Kraucunas, Ian P.; Braun, Caleb J.
• Is Part Of: Journal of open research software. Volume 6:Issue 1(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-04-20
• Subjects: Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) -- Land-use land-cover change -- LULCC -- disaggregation -- downscaling -- integrated assessment -- model -- Python -- NumPy; Computer software -- Reusability -- Periodicals; Open source software -- Periodicals; 005
• DOI: 10.5334/jors.208
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2049-9647

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.