Foresight Land Use Futures
Update and Evidence Gathering
Project Leader – Nicola O’Connor
23 January 2009 CURDS
The last six months…
•Structures and planning
•Building the evidence base
•Stakeholder engagement
Project aim
•Land use fit for the future (2060 time-horizon);
•Anticipate change, plan for the future and consider new possibilities for
the way land is used;
• Identify actions (in the short-term) to ensure land continues to be able to
support the lives dependant on it;
•Launches findings January 2010.
Land Use Futures Project: Process Diagram
Building the evidence base
The short science reviews:
•Comprehensive list of topics (40+) with
additional reviews on forestry & uplands
•Produced by recognised experts
•Approximately 2,500-5000 words long
•Current state of understanding and leading
opinion
•Peer review (summer)
•Professionally edited (summer/Autumn)
•Published in the Land Use Policy Journal
November 2009
Science review workshop
Other evidence gathering..
•The “long reviews”
•The Historical perspective
•The International perspective
•Valuing land and the goods and services it delivers
•Using research and data which already exists
•Linking with other land use projects and programmes
•Stakeholder and academic input at events
•Involving centres of excellence (including land use models)
Stakeholder engagement…
Past:
•Scoping workshops, bilaterals, 7-questions, advisory network,
workshops, electronic communication
Future:
•Entering intensive period of stakeholder engagement
•Updated website link will be circulated to 400+
•Systemic perspectives workshop held on 18 November, next is 4
February
•Scenario building workshop 18 February
•“issues-based” working groups during analytical phase
Key messages…
•The project is on track to deliver in January 2010
•Thinking holistically and systemically
•Drawing on the best expertise from the academic and stakeholder
community
•Creating a robust evidence base
•Confronting difficult issues
•A futures project which identifies actions to be taken NOW
•Making a difference
Orientation
Lead Expert Group Members
Professor David Newbery (Chair)
Professor of Economics, Cambridge
University
Professor Marcial Echenique
Professor of Land Use and Transport
Studies, Cambridge University
Professor John Goddard
Professor of Regional Development
Studies Newcastle University
Professor Louise Heathwaite
Director of the Centre for Sustainable
Water Management, Lancaster
Environment Centre, Lancaster University
Professor Joe Morris
Head of Natural Resources Management
Centre, Cranfield University
Dr Wendy Schultz
Director, Infinite Futures
Professor Carys Swanwick
Professor of Landscape, Sheffield
University
Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones
Professor of Spatial Planning and
Governance, UCL
What are the high-level challenges for the future of land
use?
Building capacity to tackle land use issues systemically and
in an integrated way
[9]
Using space intelligently and in a way which recognises
and increases value and benefits
Land use in England 2005
47.5 million live in this area
4.5 million live
elsewhere
Crops+fallow
grasses/grazing
other agriculture
forest
other urban
built up
Sample of the intersected layers of road network and population density
Population is not just
a South East
phenomenon
http://envihealth.jrc.ec.europa.eu/CEHIS/RPG3_Air_Ex3.htm
Managing crucial resources: e.g. river flows
Percentage change in mean monthly flow
between now and the 2050s using the
medium-high UKCIP02 Scenario.
Source: Environment Agency, 2008
Dealing with uncertainty – reducing inertia and increasing
adaptability
•Climate change impacts:
•CO2 emissions from land use change
•Flood risk, coastal threats
•Marine acidification
•Development of biotechnology
•Food security and global resource scarcity
•Renewable energy demands on land
•Infectious diseases
•Information technology advances
•Mobility, immigration, demographic change
•Housing and infrastructure demand
•Changes in values
•Changes in governance
•Lifestyle Changes
Dealing with conflicts and vested interests –
understanding trade-offs
•
Tensions between values reflected in market prices (properties
are“valued”for sale) and those that are not.
•
Market price may not reflect true value of land
•
•
Governance evolves to respond to market and non-marketed
impacts of land use changes. The balance between competing
claims can change.
•
•
Eco-service and social values of forest can be many times that of intensive
agriculture, urban green space many times that of green belt
Value of land with planning permission many times that without
Making desirable choices harder if key actors are unable to agree
how, and how much, various land services are valued in the
long term – “ensuring private interest does not trump longer-term
interest” (CPRE).
What assumptions drive people’s choices?
A survey commissioned for the Barker Review (2006) asked respondents
to choose the three categories of land they would most like to see
protected from development. The results were:
•71 per cent of respondents chose land with endangered wildlife as one
of their three categories;
•54 per cent chose land with scenic value
•47 per cent chose green spaces in towns and cities.
•17 per cent cited land on the edge of towns and cities as being among
the most important to protect.
Meeting the economic and social needs of citizens and
increasing well-being
Density of new buildings
120
South East
12
North West
London
10
England
dwellings per hectare
Flood risk England
80
8
60
6
40
4
20
2
0
0
1989
1990 1991 1992
1994
1995
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Communities
and1993
Local
Government
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Table P231 Land Use Change: Density of new dwellings built, England, 1989 to 2007
2006 2007
Percent new buildings in high flood risk
100
Big
increase
Ensuring our activities on land do not have irreversible
or unintended impacts
•Feedback in the in the land system –
positive and negative
•Differing life-cycles – e.g. forests, crop
rotation, housing
•70% of the future housing stock has
already been built (source SEMBE 2008)
Timescales:
• crop change - annual
• forests 30-100+ years
• wind farm 20-30 years
• settlements 100-1000 years
• roads 50-2000 years
Taking decisions at the most appropriate level and spatial scale
Population density vs percent land area England 2001
Density people/hectare
percent population
75%
150
population density
140
130
70%
65%
average density up to this fraction of land
120
60%
percent population RHS
110
55%
100
50%
90
45%
Half the population live on
4.5% of the land
area at an
average density
of 41.3/ha
80
70
60
50
40%
C of E
30%
Queen
25%
Broad-leaf
forest
Conifer
forest
20%
30
15%
20
10%
10
5%
0
0%
10%
1%
2%
3%
LUD data for ward areas
ONS for population
4%
5%
6%
percent land area
7%
8%
9%
National
Trust
Duke of
Buccleuch
Crown
estates
35%
40
0%
Some noted
landowners'
holdings
12.4%
Five areas of broad agreement on priority issues from
HLSG
1. Need for clearer direction to balance competing demands on land
•Housing demands
•Space and priority for food production
•Changing lifestyles
•Changing economic climate
•Protecting biodiversity
•Delivery of multiple benefits
2. Land Use Change significantly impacts climate change mitigation and
adaptation efforts
• Small change in stock of carbon can be large impact on target emissions
• Soil carbon sequestration very important
• Renewable energy - positive and negative impacts
• Water management including securing supply and managing excesses
• New build - high initial emissions, offset by lower lifetime emissions
Emissions and emissions targets
Mt = million tonnes
•Stock of carbon in GB
soil = 30-40,000 Mt CO2e
= 190-250 times 2050
emissions target
•annual emissions from
livestock = 30 Mt CO2e;
20% of 2050 target
•emissions from 2006
cropland change = 15 Mt
CO2e = absorption by
land converted to forest
•new settlements emit 67Mt CO2e/yr
Sources: Climate
Change Committee
(2008) and from
Thomson and van Oijen
(2008)
What next
•Land use road trip – talking to those who are already looking at land use in an
integrated way (Macaulay, SRI, SERC, UAE, Cranfield, RELU)
•Designing synthesis report – cluster findings around 4-5 major themes
•Scenarios and systems workshop, issues-focused workshops
•Planning diagnostic phase
•Circulate ToR for valuation workstream shortly