Agent-Based Modeling of Alternative Futures in the British Land Use System

Socio-economic scenarios such as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) have been widely used to analyze global change impacts, but representing their diversity is a challenge for the analytical tools applied to them. Taking Great Britain as an example, we represent a set of stakeholder-elaborated UK-SSP scenarios, linked to climate change scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways), in a globally-embedded agent-based modeling framework. We find that distinct model components are required to account for divergent behavioral, social and societal conditions in the SSPs, and that these have dramatic impacts on land system outcomes. From strong social networks and environmental sustainability in SSP1 to land consolidation and technological intensification in SSP5, scenario-specific model designs vary widely from one another and from present-day conditions. Changes in social and human capitals reflecting social cohesion, equality, health and education can generate impacts larger than those of technological and economic change, and comparable to those of modeled climate change. We develop an open-access, transferrable model framework and provide UK-SSP projections to 2080 at 1 km(2) resolution, revealing large differences in land management intensities, provision of a range of ecosystem services, and the knowledge and motivations underlying land manager decision-making. These differences suggest the existence of large but underappreciated areas of scenario space, within which novel options for land system sustainability could occur.

Automated summary

This study uses a globally-embedded agent-based modeling framework to represent a set of stakeholder-elaborated UK-SSP scenarios, linked to climate change scenarios. The study finds that different model designs are needed to account for divergent conditions in the SSPs, which have dramatic impacts on land system outcomes. Changes in social and human capitals can have impacts comparable to those of modeled climate change. The study also provides UK-SSP projections to 2080, revealing large differences in land management intensities and ecosystem services provision.