Delta Dynamic Integrated Emulator Model

The aim of the ESPA Deltas project was to provide policy makers with the knowledge and tools to enable them to evaluate the effects of policy decisions on ecosystem services and people's livelihoods. In another word, to link science to policy at the landscape scale. ESPA Deltas investigated the south-west coastal zone of Bangladesh through a transdisciplinary lens.

The Delta Dynamic Integrated Emulator Model (ΔDIEM) is essentially a trans-disciplinary framework designed to analyse linkages between ecosystem services, livelihoods, well-being and governance in coastal Bangladesh. It is designed to support the delta planning in Bangladesh. It is a tightly coupled platform driven by climatic and environmental change, demographic changes, economic changes, household decisions and governance and estimating the resulting wellbeing and poverty of the coastal population. ΔDIEM has built-in water-based structural and policy interventions (e.g. embankment changes, new crops, subsidies, loan structures, etc.) that enables consistent model runs within a robust scenario framework. Thus, development trajectories and their trade-offs can be quantified.