Transcript Foresight Land Use Futures

Foresight Land Use Futures
Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones
Lead Expert Group
Foresight Land Use Futures Project
•Foresight is undertaking a major project on the future of land use in the UK.
•It aims to help government and other policy makers to understand whether existing
land use patterns and practices are fit for the future:
• What land use challenges could the UK face?
• Will existing structures and mechanisms help us meet these challenges?
• What opportunities are there to use and manage land differently now so that
UK society continues to enjoy a good quality of life in the future
•Working with leading academics the project team will assemble the latest evidence
and research on land use topics and develop scenarios for 2060 to produce insights
on the long-term prospects for land use.
•The project covers urban and rural land and is sponsored by both the environment
and planning departments
What types of questions will it explore?
•What are the major global and national drivers of change?
•Is the "land system" sufficiently resilient and flexible?
•Are there key decisions about land use which should be taken in
the short-term with the benefit of new insights?
•Could existing land use practices lead to unintended
consequences?
•How could behaviours and attitudes towards land change?
•What developments in science and technology could affect land
use?
Land Use Futures Project: Process Diagram
Evidence base – papers to be published in November:
Spatial and proportional patterns of land use and land cover
Land use, the market and other institutions
Present and future use of "land" below ground
Land use and decision-making-
Land use and soil resource and carbon sequestration-
Land use and the political economy
Land use and air quality
Land use and legal frameworks
Land use and water resource and quality
The future of housing and homes
Relationship between land use and water management
Land use and the future of cities
Relationship between land use and ground water quality
Land use and the future of work
Relationship between land use and biodiversity
The future of transport and infrastructure
Land use and state of the natural environment
Land use logistics and infrastructure
Land use and waste management
Land use and energy
Land use and the coastal zone
The future of recreation and tourism
Land use and future of forestry
Land use and the future of mining and quarrying
Land use and the uplands
Land use and agricultural patterns
Societal culture and attitudes about land, preferences and perceptions
Agriculture - new technologies management techniques
Land and space - preferences and ownership-
Role of land use planning in creating communities and social cohesion
Land use and planning
Land use and climate change mitigation and adaptation
Land use and existing policy commitments
Land use, health and wellbeing
Land ownership patterns
Land use and disease (including animal, plant and human)
Designations and protections
Emerging cross-cutting opportunities
•Governance – managing land and key actors to balance tensions in
demand and supply
•Resilience – planning for uncertainties (e.g. for climate change, flooding,
population)
•Multifunctionality – increasing the net benefit for society from finite
resource
•Valuation – analysing approaches to valuing land services and
understanding value of land for future generations
•Use of space – analysis of impacts of physical land patterns change
•Market failures – existing failures which are storing up long-term problems
•Technology – technological changes which could significantly affect land
use and/or help mediate tensions between demand and supply
Analysis of “critical issues”
•Critical vulnerabilities in the land system
•Critical geographical “hot spots”
•Critical land use policy dilemmas
•Critical uncertainties affecting land use
Findings to be reported in January 2010
•40-50 papers on land use topics (such as the future of housing)
authored by leading academics to be published in the Land Use
Policy Journal
•Synthesis report of key findings
•A plan to take forward findings with commitments to action
(including recommendations for further research)
•Scenarios with underpinning data sets and assumptions
•Diagrammatical representations of the “land system” which
illustrate the interconnected nature of land activities and functions
•Find out more: www.foresight.gov.uk,
nicola.o’[email protected]