Land use scenarios
Land use is constantly changing. Autonomously as well as caused by changing circumstances such as climate change, economic developments, migration or agricultural policies. Scenario studies allow assessing the influence of policy measures or external drivers on future land developments. You can explore the influence of policy measures or external drivers on land developments, and evaluate the effects on a number of indicators, such as the amount of congestion, the area of impervious surface or the habitat fragmentation. Examples include the effects of the CAP reform on the pattern of agricultural land uses, climate scenarios on land degradation, or population growth on urban development.
RIKS has a suite of models and integrated systems available in house that we use for scenario studies in our projects. As an expert in the field RIKS has the tools and knowledge to model land-use dynamics for urban areas up to the complete EU-27. In out projects we apply and calibrate. In some projects we do the complete study in house to provide results for a number of scenarios only, while in others we apply our models in participatory sessions that allow participants to actively engage and interact in the process.
Some projects that included scenario studies are PRELUDE, Creating Futures and Green Infrastructure. In PRELUDE a set of qualitative storylines developed by stakeholders were translated in input for Metronamica, to explore the future of Europe’s land use and environment. In Creating Futures the WISE model was applied in a participatory setting to explore the impacts of a growth strategy in the Waikato region in New Zealand with local stakeholders. For the Green Infrastructure project we first assessed historic land use change in Europe to simulate land use changes for two socio economic scenarios.
Please take a look at our publications section to find some scientific articles on scenario studies that we did. For more information about scenario studies, please contact us directly.