Scaling is an important issue in Integrated Assessment, because Integrated Assessment tries to synthesize different knowledge patterns that operate on a variety of scales. But we miss a unifying theory that describes and explains the dynamic behaviour of interfering patterns at various scales in time and space. In this article, we explore some ideas about how to deal with the geographical scaling dimension in Integrated Assessment, giving some examples of heuristic methods that could be used, in absence of a sound theoretical basis. In addition, a third dimension of scale becomes more and more important, that goes beyond the geographical scale dimension. That dimension demarcates the functional relationships between agents, both collective (institutions and organizations) and individual agents (human beings). In this article, we discuss the functional scaling dimension, giving some preliminary ideas how to deal with that third scale level in Integrated Assessment.
