Title: Participatory land use strategies: Meeting biodiversity, climate and social objectives in a changing world
Funding source: EU Research and Innovation programme "Horizon Europe" project, Grant agreement No. 101081464
Total funding: EUR 6 678 922.50
Funding for BSC: EUR 401 250.00
Implementation period: 01.06.2023.–31.05.2027.
Coordinator: Ustav vyzkumu globalni zmeny AV CR VVI (Czechia)
Aim: The PLUS Change’s aim is to create land use strategies and decision-making processes that meet climate, biodiversity and human well-being objectives of sustainability, and to develop interventions that leverage political, economic, societal, material and cultural contexts to achieve these strategies, by involving actors at multiple decision-making levels (individual, planning, policy).
Land use strategies must juggle multiple competing social-economic priorities around production, recreation, infrastructure, and housing, whilst also mitigating for and adapting to climate change and biodiversity loss. All this must be achieved under changing global environments and local conditions. PLUS Change pulls together expertise from across the social sciences, humanities, and arts, with land use modelling, all integrated by the use of systems thinking frameworks. It identifies, analyses, and enhances sustainable land use strategies that address complexities, and pinpoints the tangible policy, governance, and behaviour interventions to achieve them. PLUS Change is a 4-year project that aims to (1) Characterize future land use trends across various scales and times, taking into account historical data, policy targets, and environmental changes, (2) Develop multi-scaled land use strategies aimed at achieving long-term policy objectives in areas such as food security, climate adaptation, biodiversity, renewable energy, and human well-being, (3) Identify pathways for implementing sustainable land use strategies, considering key actors, intervention points, and multi-level governance system components, (4) Design comprehensive recommendations for interventions to facilitate land use governance system changes towards sustainability, with a focus on behavioural, structural, procedural alterations and innovation use, and (5) Co-create a toolbox for land use planners to enact interventions, including planning practice changes, decision impact simulations, citizen engagement, and educational outreach. The resulting toolbox is developed directly with land use decision makers in practice cases from 11 countries, and 220+ land use actors. It connects with other Cluster 5 and 6 projects and Horizon Missions through an online hub, and contributes to ongoing planning and land use change initiatives in each practice case. PLUS Change reflects much of the 2021 EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change and it calls for a smarter, faster and more systematic approach – adapting to inevitable climate change impacts and doing so quickly at all levels of governance. In particular, it looks to advance our understanding of how land use planning and related decision-making can play an optimal role in “building a more resilient tomorrow”.
Project website: https://pluschange.eu/
Local contact person: Elīna Dace, elina.dace@bscresearch.lv