Preconditions and milestones
Essential preconditions for fulfilling  the highly demanding tasks assigned to the Institute are, in addition to its excellence in expertise on agricultural and environmental computer science,  above all  knowledge and data available on a broad basis.
The Institute of Landscape Systems Analysis is cooperating very closely  with the experimentally biased institutes of ZALF, but  furthermore also with a number of research facilities and universities in Germany and abroad, e.g. with the Institute of  Agricultural Ecology of FAL (FACE, techniques for the assessment of greenhouse gases).
The institute  has at its disposal

	a number of high-quality dynamic and, in terms of  land use and climate, highly sensitive soil, agro- and forest-ecosystem models (THESEUS, HERMES, BOWA, SOCRATES, AGROSIM, BIOME-BGC),
	habitat models for the assessment of possible implications of land-use and climate changes for biodiversity,
	efficient GIS-supported methods for explorative landscape analysis and potential assessment, as well as
	an innovative, internationally highly renowned spatial modelling and simulation system - SAMT - that has been successfully employed for the establishment of decision-making support systems to address different problems posed.

Despite all the uncertainty these tools still have as regards the assessment of possible impacts of climate on agriculture and forestry, they can be applied to landscape balance studies, as well as to the analysis of possible adaptation strategies.
Supplementary field experiments initiated by the Institute, are used to find out whether and to what extent beneficial effects can be attained for agricultural production under changed frame conditions, by way of new, innovative cropping systems, as well as by altering the fertilisation strategy.