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Visions of Land Use Transitions in Europe. Bas Pedroli, 24 May 2011, Brussels ESPON workshop Evidence on European Land Use. VOLANTE. Objective:
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Visions of Land Use Transitions in Europe Bas Pedroli, 24 May 2011, Brussels ESPON workshop Evidence on European Land Use
VOLANTE • Objective: • to provide European policy and land management with innovative visions for future sustainable resource management and land use policy development under a range of environmental and management conditions across Europe • FP7 Collaborative project • Duration 4.5 years as from November 2010 • 14 partners from 11 countries • Project Coordination Alterra Wageningen UR
Starting points • The world is a changing environment. • Land use transitions will occur in an ever increasing pace, answering changing conditions of global market and society. • Sound management of energy sources, climate adaptation and mitigation, and changing urban-rural relationships will all have large, hardly predictable impacts on land use. • European Policy is therefore confronted with the need to develop visions of managing these land use transitions in a responsible way.
Approach • Land system science (GLP) • Three basic questions: • How can the analysis of empirical and historical land system datasets provide insight into human-environment interactions? • How can integrated modelling and the ecosystem service concept contribute to the testing of hypotheses about land system functioning and decision making? • How can our current understanding of land systems inform the choices that society has about future landscapes?
Discussion • can observed patterns of land use and land use change be used to infer the underlying processes? • in complex systems this principle breaks down! • many development pathways arising from multiple drivers, controlled by different processes lead to same land use outcome, • while similar processes may lead to different outcomes. • thus: not rely on observation alone, but use both empirical analysis and model simulation in combination to explore the how and why of land system change
Discussion (2) • models can be used to explore alternative development pathways, but models need to be grounded in, and able to reproduce, observation • the processes that models represent can only be informed by empirical evidence, yet observation alone cannot be used to explore the wide range of processes that occur in reality • therefore: coupling of different land system methods exploiting methodological strengths whilst overcoming their weaknesses
Conclusion • sustainable land use strategies need to be underpinned by understanding of how policy will affect land use and ecosystem services and the trade-offs and synergies between them • embedding policy makers and relevant stakeholders in the research process through a carefully planned strategy of knowledge exchange • Improving the potential to support the formulation of sound, evidence-based policies
Visions of Land Use Transitions in Europe: Enhancing sound land use management for the future