Modelling environmental change in Europe

This technical report provides a non-exhaustive overview of modelling tools currently available to simulate future environmental change at a European scale. Modelling tools have become an important cornerstone of environmental assessments, and play an important role in providing the data and indicators needed to describe the state of, trends in and prospects of the environment. The report presents a general characterisation of environmental models based on the themes covered, the geographical coverage and the analytical structure of the respective models. A pool of some 80 models is introduced, many of which have been used by the European Environment Agency in its recent environmental assessments and reports, a limited number of which are described in more detail. This review identifies gaps in the availability, accessibility and applicability of current modelling tools, and stresses the need to further stimulate the development and application of environmental forecasting techniques.