Geïntegreerde besluitondersteuning voor land- en bosbouw in Europa (id-SAFE)

Policies and decisions related to sustainable land use management are complex because of the many challenges posed by multiple social, economic, political and environmental contexts and their interactions. Such complexity is not reflected in existing policy and decision support tools (DSTs), which are often highly customised to address particular management questions within individual sectors. This ad-hoc and sectoral approach has created a fragmented and incomplete system of individual, disconnected tools. id-SAFE aims to tackle this fragmentation by developing “DST labs”, which combine advances in modelling, high performance computing and complex data analytics with the active involvement of stakeholders through a process of participatory co-design. The DST labs will incorporate a new generation of models and methods that directly address current gaps in decision support, for example, considering synergies and trade-offs between sectors through integrated modelling, or accounting for the role of human behaviour in complex land use decisions through agent-based modelling. Within the labs, a modular approach to the application and integration of new and existing models and DSTs will eliminate reliance on a single model by using ‘plug-and-play’ technology. This will allow the interchange and intercomparison of different models making uncertainties explicit. The DST labs will be used to explore land use configurations that result from multiple policy objectives to meet societal needs using exploratory scenarios of uncertain land use drivers and normative visions of desired targets. The approach will be iteratively tested and refined in a set of nested, multi-scalar case studies across Europe. The id-SAFE Integrated Approach will provide greater flexibility for stakeholders to explore a wide range of complex land use decisions whilst increasing transparency about DST assumptions and uncertainties to support robust and sustainable land management solutions.