Europe-LAND’s main objective: “identify, develop, test and implement integrated tools to improve the understanding of factors behind land-use (LU) decisions and the stakeholders’ awareness and engagement in terms of CC (CC) and biodiversity challenges in Europe.” We strive to increase the knowledge base on how such decisions can lead towards the efficient and socially responsible pursuit of multiple policy objectives to gain a national, regional and pan-European vision supporting LU strategies, mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity conservation. To explain what drives the behavior of LU stakeholders and their awareness of global challenges, Europe-LAND will interact with multiple stakeholders on multiple levels, utilising appropriate participatory approaches (as for example, the Living Lab approach).
The project has five specific objectives:
* 1: Foster a wide understanding of the key motivations and drivers behind land-use related decisions in Europe.
Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of total EU Greenhouse Gas emissions. Despite decades of economic ´one size fits all´ incentives to green the sector, its GHG contribution is projected to increase. We need to understand: What drives agriculture to steer the sector towards and through the green transition?
* 2: Identify the awareness of key actors about CCCC and biodiversity challenges in respect to LU and their willingness to contribute addressing them.
The agricultural stakeholders’ perceptions, attitudes and awareness related to environmental challenges are important factors that influence LU decisions and give support to the environmental policies. A deeper understanding of decision-making behind their revealed behaviour is required: What factors influence decision-making? What is the role of climate and biodiversity challenges? To what extent are policy incentives and instruments in LU decisions being used the EU? What are the conditions influencing local land-use decision-making, and how is the governance of CCCC adaptation performed in relevant European case study regions?* 3: Characterise future expected LU patterns consistent with long-term objectives and with a focus on climate and biodiversity in comparison with current and past situations.
Intensive LU changes are also influenced by CCCC, but patterns of changes have not been coherently studied in the EU. We will compare modelling tools and describe and calibrate a transition model, develop a set of LU/LC indicators, study driving forces and LU/LC changes for 2050 under different scenarios of CC and human pressure.
* 4: Support CC mitigation and adaptation efforts and biodiversity policy design and implementation by constructing and testing a conceptual telecoupling framework to analyse LU strategies.
The extensive and continuing land degradation throughout the world indicates the need to identify and provide more sustainable land-use causes. How can telecoupling address current limitations and future challenges for land-use in the EU context, as well as create targeted policies and improve its management? Telecoupling needs to be further operationalised for quantitative and qualitative analyses (e.g. paying closer attention to the location-based and flow-based human-environment interactions and to the deeper understanding of local, regional and global processes and their interconnectedness via various material and immaterial flows).
* 5: Gather and consolidate LU experiences by means of a dynamic toolbox of instruments to be used by key actors at various levels to visualise spatial and temporal changes in LU, based on different planned actions.
Even though the interconnectivity of LU and CC has been identified and depicted globally, there is a lack of means which may cater for a visualisation of this interrelationship. Visualising the spatial and temporal changes in LU based on different planned actions and by connecting them to CC scenarios can support sustainable decision-making of stakeholders. How can Europe-LAND’s stakeholders gain a deeper understanding of the effects of their alteration in LU to potentially motivate a behavioural change?
Spatial scope: Primary focus of assessments and outputs, respectively, are first and foremost related to agricultural land, wetlands, and forests. Europe-LAND does not address urban areas, cities, villages or industrial areas as some other HE projects do. The spatial levels of assessment will vary.
Geographical scope: 12 EU countries (DE, GR, DK, PT, ET, IT, RO, PL, LV, SV, AT, CZ)
