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The continuously growing global demands on a finite land resource will require better strategic policies and management of trade-offs to avoid conflicts between different land-use sectors. Visions of the future can support strategic planning by stimulating dialogue, building a consensus on shared priorities and providing long-term targets. We present a novel approach to elicit stakeholder visions of future desired land use, which was applied with a broad range of experts to develop cross-sectoral visions in Europe. The approach is based on (i) combination of software tools and facilitation techniques to stimulate engagement and creativity; (ii) methodical selection of stakeholders; (iii) use of land attributes to deconstruct the multifaceted sectoral visions into land-use changes that can be clustered into few cross-sectoral visions, and (iv) a rigorous iterative process. Three cross-sectoral visions of sustainable land use in Europe in 2040 emerged from applying the approach in participatory workshops involving experts in nature conservation, recreation, agriculture, forestry, settlements, energy, and water. The three visions—Best Land in Europe, Regional Connected and Local Multifunctional—shared a wish to achieve a land use that is sustainable through multifunctionality, resource use efficiency, controlled urban growth, rural renewal and widespread nature. However, they differ on the scale at which land services are provided—EU-wide, regional or local—reflecting the land-sparing versus land-sharing debate. We discuss the usefulness of the approach, as well as the challenges posed and solutions offered by the visions to support strategic land-use planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protection of natural or semi-natural ecosystems is an important part of societal strategies for maintaining biodiversity, ecosystem services, and achieving overall sustainable development. The assessment of multiple emerging land use trade-offs is complicated by the fact that land use changes occur and have consequences at local, regional, and even global scale. Outcomes also depend on the underlying socio-economic trends. We apply a coupled, multi-scale modelling system to assess an increase in nature protection areas as a key policy option in the European Union (EU). The main goal of the analysis is to understand the interactions between policy-induced land use changes across different scales and sectors under two contrasting future socio-economic pathways. We demonstrate how complementary insights into land system change can be gained by coupling land use models for agriculture, forestry, and urban areas for Europe, in connection with other world regions. The simulated policy case of nature protection shows how the allocation of a certain share of total available land to newly protected areas, with specific management restrictions imposed, may have a range of impacts on different land-based sectors until the year 2040. Agricultural land in Europe is slightly reduced, which is partly compensated for by higher management intensity. As a consequence of higher costs, total calorie supply per capita is reduced within the EU. While wood harvest is projected to decrease, carbon sequestration rates increase in European forests. At the same time, imports of industrial roundwood from other world regions are expected to increase. Some of the aggregate effects of nature protection have very different implications at the local to regional scale in different parts of Europe. Due to nature protection measures, agricultural production is shifted from more productive land in Europe to on average less productive land in other parts of the world. This increases, at the global level, the allocation of land resources for agriculture, leading to a decrease in tropical forest areas, reduced carbon stocks, and higher greenhouse gas emissions outside of Europe. The integrated modelling framework provides a method to assess the land use effects of a single policy option while accounting for the trade-offs between locations, and between regional, European, and global scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plausible scenarios of future land use derived from model projections may differ substantially from what is actually desired by society, and identifying such mismatches is important for identifying policies to resolve them. This paper presents an approach to link explorative projections of future land use for the European Union to normative visions of desired land-use futures. We used the results of 24 scenario projections obtained from seven linked simulation models to explore uncertainty in future land-use developments. Land-use projections were linked to statements made by stakeholders for three normative visions of desired, future land use. The visions differed in the scale of multifunctionality of land use: at European (Best Land in Europe), regional (Regional Connected) or local (Local Multifunctional) level. To identify pathways to these visions, we analysed in which cases projected land-use changes matched with the land-use changes desired in the visions. We identified five pathways to the vision Regional Connected, two pathways to the vision Best Land in Europe, but no pathway to the vision Local Multifunctional. Our results suggest that policies have the ability to change the development of land use such that it is more in line with land-use futures desired by society. We believe our approach represents an interesting avenue for foresight studies on land use, as it combines the credibility from explorative scenarios with legitimacy and saliency of normative visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessments of land-system change have dominantly focused on conversions among broad land-use categories, whereas intensity changes within these categories have received less attention. Considering that both modes of land change typically result in diverse patterns and trajectories of land-system change, there is a need to develop approaches to reduce this complexity. Using Europe as a case study, we applied a clustering approach based on self-organising maps and 12 land-use indicators to map (1) land-system archetypes for the year 2006, defined as characteristic patterns of land-use extent and intensity, and (2) archetypical change trajectories, defined as characteristic changes in these indicators between 1990 and 2006. Our analysis identified 15 land-system archetypes, with low-intensity archetypes dominating (ca. 55 % coverage) followed by high-intensity archetypes (ca. 26 %). In terms of change, we identified 17 archetypical change trajectories, clustered in four broad categories. Stable land systems were most widespread (ca. 40 % of the EU27), followed by land systems characterised by land-use conversions (ca. 26 %), de-intensification trends (ca. 18 %), and intensification trends (ca. 15 %). Intensively used and intensifying land systems were particularly widespread in Western Europe, whereas low-intensity and de-intensifying land systems dominated in Europe’s east. Comparing our archetypes with environmental and socio-economic factors revealed that good accessibility and favourable topographic, climatic, and soil conditions characterised intensively managed areas. Intensification was also most common in these areas, suggesting an ongoing polarisation of intensification in favourable areas and de-intensification and abandonment trends in more marginal areas. By providing spatially and thematically improved maps of land-use patterns and changes therein, our archetypes could serve as useful inputs for more detailed assessments of ecosystem service demand and supply, as well as explorations of land-system change trade-offs, especially with regard to land-use intensity. Further, they could serve useful for identifying regions within which similar policy tools could be valuable to develop regionalised, context-specific land-management policies to steer European land systems onto desired pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explorations of future land use change are important to understand potential conflicts between competing land uses, trade-offs associated with particular land change trajectories, and the effectiveness of policies to steer land systems into desirable states. Most model-based explorations and scenario studies focused on conversions in broad land use classes, but disregarded changes in land management or focused on individual sectors only. Using the European Union (EU) as a case study, we developed an approach to identifying typical combinations of land cover and management changes by combining the results of multimodel simulations in the agriculture and forest sectors for four scenarios from 2000 to 2040. We visualized land change trajectories by mapping regional hotspots of change. Land change trajectories differed in extent and spatial pattern across the EU and among scenarios, indicating trajectory-specific option spaces for alternative land system outcomes. In spite of the large variation in the area of change, similar hotspots of land change were observed among the scenarios. All scenarios indicate a stronger polarization of land use in Europe, with a loss of multifunctional landscapes. We analyzed locations subject to change by comparing location characteristics associated with certain land change trajectories. Results indicate differences in the location conditions of different land change trajectories, with diverging impacts on ecosystem service provisioning. Policy and planning for future land use needs to account for the spatial variation of land change trajectories to achieve both overarching and location-specific targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest protection is one of the main measures to prevent loss of biological and landscape diversity. This study aimed to assess to what extent forests are currently protected and how felling restrictions affect the potential annual wood supply within 27 European Union member states, Norway, and Switzerland and to discuss trade-offs between intensified use of forest biomass and forest protection efforts. Protected forests covered 33 million ha (20 % of total forest area) in 2005, of which 16 million ha was protected for biodiversity and the remaining area for landscape diversity. Within the protected areas, on average 48 % of the volume cannot be harvested in forests protected for biodiversity and 40 % in forests protected for landscapes. Consequently, 73 million m (10 % of the annual theoretical potential supply from the total forest area) of wood cannot be felled from the protected forests in Europe. Protected forests do not necessarily affect wood supply given the current demand for wood in Europe. However, if demand for wood from European forests for material and energy use significantly increases, the impact of existing protected forest networks may become significant after all. On the other hand, wood harvesting is allowed to a fair extent in many protected areas. Hence, the question could be raised whether biodiversity and landscape diversity within designated areas are sufficiently protected. Careful planning is required to accommodate both the protection of biological and landscape diversity and demand for wood, while not forgetting all other services that forests provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Examines the impact of European Union Detectives on innovation in nutritional medicine. Amendments to the pharmaceuticals directive; Food supplements directive; Traditional herbal medicinal products directive.