WP3: What are the implications of achieving net zero and other ambitions at multiple spatial scales?

This WP brings together the national land-use scenarios from WP1 and the local participatory visions from WP2 to explore the matches, mismatches and trade-offs between the different proposed futures. Through a combination of quantitative spatial modelling and in-depth co-development workshops within our focal landscapes, WP3 will address five linked questions:

• What are the mismatches between WP1 top-down (policy driven) and WP2 bottom-up (stakeholder led) land use scenarios for achieving net zero ambitions?

• What are the trade-offs between achieving net zero and other biophysical objectives across scenarios?

• What are the trade-offs between achieving net zero and socio-economic/justice objectives?

• How do these trade-offs vary across spatial scales? (for example, within and between focal landscapes, across the UK as a whole, and globally)

• Which scenarios/visions best balance trade-offs and synergies across objectives and spatial scales, and what mismatches are still present?

We will first develop spatial ‘bottom-up’ scenarios from the case study visions produced in WP2, to estimate the land-use / management changes these imply for each focal landscape. Differences between the top-down and bottom-up scenarios could arise from, for instance, land cover choices (e.g. forest vs. pasture), land use (e.g. intensive vs. extensive pasture), or economic activity (e.g. the number of livestock or livestock farmers). WP1 scenarios are constrained to achieve net zero, while WP2 scenarios are not. We will therefore assess mismatches in net zero contribution between the two approaches.

As well as predicting the impact of each scenario on net GHG emissions from agriculture and land use, we will also estimate impacts on food production and bird populations. This will allow an analysis of how different scenarios trade-off the achievement of multiple objectives at the landscape scale.

We will then use secondary data, together with validation from farmers, experts and policy makers, to compare the impact of the different land use scenarios on socio-economic and justice indicators.

The way that land-use change affects food production has implications across multiple scales: from regional to national and, through trade, overseas. We will estimate how top-down and bottom-up scenarios affect productivity at the case study and UK level, modelling the reallocation of lost production, based on agricultural suitability, profitability, and trade. We will estimate impacts on carbon stocks, biodiversity, agricultural and economic indicators (e.g. food prices, agricultural yields).

Using deliberative exercises, WP3 will then investigate the extent to which the results of these contrasting approaches can be reconciled into co-developed ‘preferred’ scenarios that balance different objectives.