Kasper Kok

Modelling Land-Use and Land-Cover Change

The decade since the initiation of the Land-Use/Cover Change (LUCC) project in 1995 (see Chap. 1) has witnessed considerable advances in the field of modeling of land-use/cover change. The science plan of the project indicated that the major task would be the development of a new generation of land-use/cover change models capable of simulating the major socioeconomic and biophysical driving forces of land-use and land-cover change. In addition, these models were supposed to be able to handle interactions at several spatial and temporal scales. Recent publications indicate that the LUCC science community has successfully met this challenge and a wide range of advanced models, aiming at different scales and research questions, is now available (Briassoulis 2000; Agarwal et al. 2001; Veldkamp and Lambin 2001; Parker et al. 2003; Nagendra et al. 2004; Veldkamp and Verburg 2004; Verburg et al. 2004b; Verburg and Veldkamp 2005). One of the most important observations that can be made examining the range of available land-use/ cover change models is the wide variety of approaches and concepts underlying the models. This chapter intends to describe the variety of modeling approaches, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches and indicate the remaining challenges for the land-use science community. Not being able to discuss all individual models and approaches, we will focus on broad distinctions between approaches and discuss how modelers have dealt with a number of important aspects of the functioning of the landuse system. A land-use system is understood here as a type of land use with interrelated determining factors with strong functional relations with each other (see Fig. 1.2). These factors include a wide range of land-use influencing factors than can be biophysical, economic, social, cultural, political, or institutional. The discussion of modeling approaches in this chapter is illustrated with examples of models and results from selected research projects.

Evaluating impact of spatial scales on land use pattern analysis in Central America

The complexity of the relations between land use patterns and their spatial determinants causes the scale of analysis to influence the results. Often, focus is on one aspect of this scale effect, the spatial resolution. This study emphasises the influence of a varying spatial extent on the analysis of land use patterns in six countries in Central America. Statistical techniques are used to determine the relationship between six land uses and a number of potential determining factors, varying both resolution and extent. Results indicate that the effect of spatial resolution, by aggregating a basic grid to larger units, is small in comparison with other similar studies. The effect of a varying extent, by keeping either national boundaries or analysing the entire region at once, on the other hand, is substantial. An unrealistic redistribution of all major land use types, including a large-scale reforestation, is predicted using statistical analysis with the entire region as extent. When expanding the extent to a unit larger than a country, implicit assumptions concerning market mechanisms and national policies are adopted that do not correspond to the actual situation. Despite the existence of the Central American Common Market, it cannot be assumed that any agricultural land use will expand to satisfy an increasing demand in another country. Findings strongly suggest that any modelling effort at regional or global level should incorporate a thorough analysis of the effects of spatial scale on land use change predictions.

Methods for Developing Multiscale Participatory Scenarios: Insights from Southern Africa and Europe

Scenario planning is increasingly recognized as a useful tool for exploring change in social- ecological systems on decadal to centennial time horizons. In environmental decision making, scenario development tends to include participatory methods for engaging stakeholders and is conducted at multiple scales. This paper presents insights from participatory scenario development in two separate multiscale environmental assessments. We find that, to engage stakeholders at multiple scales, it is important that the issues explored at each scale be relevant and credible to stakeholders at that scale. An important trade-off exists between maintaining relevance to stakeholders at different scales and maintaining consistency across scales to allow for comparison of scenarios. Where downscaling methods are used to ensure consistency, there can be important consequences for (1) the diversity of scenario outcomes, (2) temporal mismatches in the storylines at different scales, and (3) power relationships among stakeholders at different scales. We suggest that development of participatory scenarios at multiple scales has a strong potential to contribute to environmental decision making, but it requires a substantial investment of time and resources to realize its full potential.

A method and application of multi-scale validation in spatial land use models

The majority of the large number of existing land use models lack a proper validation, often because of data problems. Moreover, despite recognition of the necessity to incorporate a multi-scale analysis, scale dependencies are normally not considered during validation. In this paper, a multi-scale land use change modelling framework, conversion of land use and its effects (CLUE), is calibrated for Costa Rica and validated at five spatial resolutions for Honduras and Costa Rica. Both countries experienced locally very strong actual land use changes. Calibration runs show that the model is very sensitive to changes in the autonomous development parameter, which defines the influence of the finest resolution. Validation results are very satisfactory for both countries. Especially, changes in major land use types are reproduced with the model. Changes in localised land use types are more difficult to project. The magnitude of gains and magnitude of losses are slightly underestimated in all cases. The multi-scale validation demonstrates that results improve strongly, and exponentially, with decreasing spatial resolution. Strong reduction of the number of observations results in a correlation between actual and modelled changes that approximates the perfect value of 1. The study demonstrates that the CLUE modelling framework can reproduce changes as they took place in Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, and shows how conclusions can differ depending on the scale at which validation is performed.

Managing the effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems under water scarcity. The GLOBAQUA project

Water scarcity is a serious environmental problem in many European regions, and will likely increase in the near future as a consequence of increased abstraction and climate change. Water scarcity exacerbates the effects of multiple stressors, and thus results in decreased water quality. It impacts river ecosystems, threatens the services they provide, and it will force managers and policy-makers to change their current practices. The EU-FP7 project GLOBAQUA aims at identifying the prevalence, interaction and linkages between stressors, and to assess their effects on the chemical and ecological status of freshwater ecosystems in order to improve water management practice and policies. GLOBAQUA assembles a multidisciplinary team of 21 European plus 2 non-European scientific institutions, as well as water authorities and river basin managers. The project includes experts in hydrology, chemistry, biology, geomorphology, modelling, socio-economics, governance science, knowledge brokerage, and policy advocacy. GLOBAQUA studies six river basins (Ebro, Adige, Sava, Evrotas, Anglian and Souss Massa) affected by water scarcity, and aims to answer the following questions: how does water scarcity interact with other existing stressors in the study river basins? How will these interactions change according to the different scenarios of future global change? Which will be the foreseeable consequences for river ecosystems? How will these in turn affect the services the ecosystems provide? How should management and policies be adapted to minimise the ecological, economic and societal consequences? These questions will be approached by combining data-mining, field- and laboratory-based research, and modelling. Here, we outline the general structure of the project and the activities to be conducted within the fourteen work-packages of GLOBAQUA.

Combining qualitative and quantitative understanding for exploring cross-sectoral climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in Europe.

Climate change will affect all sectors of society and the environment at all scales, ranging from the continental to the national and local. Decision-makers and other interested citizens need to be able to access reliable science-based information to help them respond to the risks of climate change impacts and assess opportunities for adaptation. Participatory integrated assessment (IA) tools combine knowledge from diverse scientific disciplines, take account of the value and importance of stakeholder ‘lay insight’ and facilitate a two-way iterative process of exploration of ‘what if’s’ to enable decision-makers to test ideas and improve their understanding of the complex issues surrounding adaptation to climate change. This paper describes the conceptual design of a participatory IA tool, the CLIMSAVE IA Platform, based on a professionally facilitated stakeholder engagement process. The CLIMSAVE (climate change integrated methodology for cross-sectoral adaptation and vulnerability in Europe) Platform is a user-friendly, interactive web-based tool that allows stakeholders to assess climate change impacts and vulnerabilities for a range of sectors, including agriculture, forests, biodiversity, coasts, water resources and urban development. The linking of models for the different sectors enables stakeholders to see how their interactions could affect European landscape change. The relationship between choice, uncertainty and constraints is a key cross-cutting theme in the conduct of past participatory IA. Integrating scenario development processes with an interactive modelling platform is shown to allow the exploration of future uncertainty as a structural feature of such complex problems, encouraging stakeholders to explore adaptation choices within real-world constraints of future resource availability and environmental and institutional capacities, rather than seeking the ‘right’ answers.

Searching for the Future of Land : Scenarios from the Local to Global Scale

Much of the scientific research concerned with land-use and land-cover issues is motivated by questions related to global environmental change. For example, will deforestation continue, and if yes, where, and at what rate? How will demographic changes affect future land use and cover? How will economic growth influence future land use and cover? What will be the magnitude of emissions of greenhouse gases related to land use and cover? A common characteristic of these and other issues related to global environmental change is that they stimulate questions not only about past and present changes in land use and cover but also about their future changes (Brouwer and McCarl 2006). The main objective of this chapter is to summarize the state of understanding about the future of land. What are the range and predominant views of this future? What are the views on the global, continental, regional and local levels? We review what (we think) we know and don’t know about the future of land by reviewing published scenarios from the global to local scale. Our aim is to identify the main messages of these scenarios especially relevant to global change issues, and to recommend how scenarios can be improved to better address the outstanding questions about global change and land use/cover.

Scale and Governance: Conceptual Considerations and Practical Implications

Policies have many unforeseen impacts on social-ecological systems at different levels of spatial and temporal scales. Partly because of this, both scale and governance have been and continue to be hotly debated and studied topics within many scientific disciplines. Although there are two distinct vocabularies, both communities seem to be struggling to come to terms with a shift that has common elements. This special feature has two types of contributions, three scoping papers, providing a state-of- the-art overview of the conceptual discussion, and six case study papers that set out to deal with the practicalities of combining scale and governance. The scoping papers strongly indicate that using the notion of complex systems, specifically the social-ecological system, is needed to improve the understanding of scale and governance. They furthermore confirm that both communities are shifting. Additionally, the papers show several promising ways forward to link scale and governance, even though they differ in their suggestions on most important courses of action and research agendas. The case study papers show that conceptual advances have not been taken up to their full extent in practice. Importantly, none of the papers is being very specific on the definition of the term governance. Additionally, most attention is given to spatial, temporal, and jurisdictional scales, largely ignoring, for example, network and knowledge scales. What is urgently needed are more case study papers that explicitly make use of the conceptual literature and through that attempt to link scale and governance. Ultimately, there is a challenge to more effectively include nonscientists in the debate. A transdisciplinary arena is required where the concepts of scale and governance are framed such that a broad variety of stakeholders can join the debate and/or the decision making process.

Enhancing the Relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Research

This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first provides an overview of uses of social–environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance.

Combining Two Approaches of Integrated Scenario Development to Combat Desertification in the Guadalentín Watershed, Spain

Desertification in Spain is a largely society-driven process, which can be managed effectively only through an understanding of environmental, sociocultural, and economic driving forces. This calls for a more active role of decision makers and other stakeholders. We present two promising approaches—participatory stakeholder workshops and a spatial policy support system (PoSS)—to develop future scenarios of land-use change for a watershed in Spain. We furthermore discuss the efforts involved and the added values of combining both methods. Based on two local workshops, three scenarios were constructed, which were subsequently formalised, parameterised, and quantified. We conclude that there are large advantages of linking narrative storylines and a spatial PoSS. Storylines ensure an active participation of a large range of stakeholders, additionally offering the possibility to develop highly integrated scenarios. The PoSS provides a spatially detailed and quantitative output, that can also be used to check the internal consistency of the qualitative scenarios. Linking stories and models can thus open the way for more successful management strategies to combat land degradation.