Natural science meets social science:how can policy-driven land-use models and ground-up approaches be reconciled?

This element brings together the national land-use scenarios from the land-use modelling and the social dimensions 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, this research will address five linked questions:

• What are the mismatches between the top-down (policy driven) and ground-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). Land-use modelling scenarios are constrained to achieve net zero, while the ground-up 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, this research 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.