Landscape level simulation of land use change

Abstract

Land use changes are a result of decision making at the local level which is influenced by changes in the regional and global economy, demography, policies and other factors operating over a wide range of organisational levels and spatial scales. This chapter describes a methodology to integrate the demands for changes in land use as determined by global and national scale processes with local level conditions influencing land use conversions across the European Union. The approach enables an assessment of landscape level changes in land use and the analysis of policies specifically aimed at land use and landscape functioning. A baseline scenario is presented to illustrate the approach and results. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008.