Land use modelling within SPEED responds to changes in both the five downscaled shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) and the bias-corrected CHESS-SCAPE climate datasets for four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). It incorporates two components:
- land suitability mapping based on biophysical constraints (soils, climate, topography)
- land allocation modelling using an Agent-Based Model (CRAFTY-UK) driven by land suitability and narrative and spatial inputs from the SSPs socio-economic pathways.
The land use outputs are under development, with finalised versions available at the end of the project in March 2023. The outputs for six RCP-SSP combinations will be made available to the academic community. These outputs will be:
- At 1 km resolution scenarios of land use allocation for GB
- Available at decadal time slices through to 2070
- Nested within the IPCC’s internationally recognised RCP-SSP framework
- Explicitly considering socio-economic and climatic change together.
The Land Use Modelling products are being jointly developed through collaboration with the Data Science of the Natural Environment team at Lancaster University and, through co-funding from the Met Office as part of the UK Climate Resilience Programme (DN420214 – CR19-3), with University of Edinburgh, Forest Research and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.