Modeling Uncertainty in Large Natural Resource Allocation Problems

Cai, Yongyang ; Steinbuks, Jevgenijs ; Judd, Kenneth L. ; Jaegermeyr, Jonas ; Hertel, Thomas W.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: DYNAMIC MODEL;    EXTENDED NONLINEAR CERTAINTY EQUIVALENT APPROXIMATION METHOD;    CROP YIELD;    LAND USE;    NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9159
RP-ID  :  WPS9159

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The productivity of the world'snatural resources is critically dependent on a variety ofhighly uncertain factors, which obscure individual investorsand governments that seek to make long-term, sometimesirreversible investments in their exploration andutilization. These dynamic considerations are poorlyrepresented in disaggregated resource models, asincorporating uncertainty into large-dimensional problemspresents a challenging computational task. This studyintroduces a novel numerical method to solve large-scaledynamic stochastic natural resource allocation problems thatcannot be addressed by conventional methods. The method isillustrated with an application focusing on the allocationof global land resource use under stochastic crop yields dueto adverse climate impacts and limits on furthertechnological progress. For the same model parameters, therange of land conversion is considerably smaller for thedynamic stochastic model as compared to deterministicscenario analysis. The scenario analysis can thussignificantly overstate the magnitude of expected landconversion under uncertain crop yields.