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Aberdeenshire Regional Land Use Pilot
An interactive tool to support land use decision making
Please read this page and the information on Land Use Policy Areas and Policy Sliders before using the Tool |
This is a prototype developed to explore how multiple benefits might be assessed and none of the output represents any recommendations for land use change from The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeenshire Council or the Scottish Government. |
This site is designed to help support decisions about land use change. Potential uses of the tools are in the areas of catchment management, woodland strategies and the targeting of grant funding.
Effective support for land use change means identifying areas that are appropriate for the proposed change (e.g. woodland expansion) but where this land use change could also either provide other benefits (such as recreation opportunities) or reduce problems (such as poor water quality).
This tool allows the user to explore how land use might change under a medium prediction for climate change when considering a number of policy relevant themes.
Policy Areas: There are six policy areas (scenario starting points) accessible by clicking on the buttons at the top of the tool page. These starting points relate to policy areas that are relevant to the Land Use Strategy and are the result of up-weighting certain criteria that are most relevant to that policy area. These are starting points from which the user can explore land cover changes.
Policy Sliders: Within each of these policy areas, the user is able to vary other criteria to explore the consequences of changing the weighting (policy priorities) of different sets of criteria on the pattern of land cover. The tool will then illustrate the consequences of this for sediment export, nitrogen retention and carbon stocks at a sub catchment level.
Further Information on carbon pools (soil, vegetation and livestock) and nitrogen retention and sediment is available by clicking on the link.
