TY - JOUR

T1 - From stories to maps

T2 - translating participatory scenario narratives into spatially explicit information

AU - Duguma, Dula W.

AU - Schultner, Jannik

AU - Abson, David J.

AU - Fischer, Joern

N1 - Funding Information: We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on an earlier version of this paper. We gratefully appreciate funding by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the author(s).

PY - 2022/6

Y1 - 2022/6

N2 - To understand future land use change, and related ecological and social impacts, scenario planning has become increasingly popular. We demonstrate an approach for translating scenario narratives into spatially explicit land use maps. Starting from four previously developed scenarios of land use change in southwestern Ethiopia we developed a baseline land use map, and rules for how to modify the baseline map under each scenario. We used the proximity-based scenario generator of the InVEST software to model the prospective land cover changes to existing forest (53%), arable land (26%), pasture (11%), and wetlands (7%), under the four future scenarios. The model results indicate that forest cover area would remain essentially the same under the “gain over grain” and “biosphere reserve” scenarios. Coffee plantations would cover almost half the landscape (49%) in the “mining green gold” scenario, whereas arable land would expand and cover more than half of the landscape (57%) in the “food first” scenario. The approach presented here integrates future land use mapping with participatory, narrative-based scenario research to assess the social-ecological outcomes of alternative futures. The translation of narratives onto maps can help researchers and stakeholders better understand and communicate potential land use changes, and facilitate a more spatially nuanced approach to managing or adapting to broad scale socioeconomic changes. Our study constitutes a methodological contribution to the management of land use change, as well as a tool to facilitate transparent policy negotiation and communication at local, government, and NGO levels.

AB - To understand future land use change, and related ecological and social impacts, scenario planning has become increasingly popular. We demonstrate an approach for translating scenario narratives into spatially explicit land use maps. Starting from four previously developed scenarios of land use change in southwestern Ethiopia we developed a baseline land use map, and rules for how to modify the baseline map under each scenario. We used the proximity-based scenario generator of the InVEST software to model the prospective land cover changes to existing forest (53%), arable land (26%), pasture (11%), and wetlands (7%), under the four future scenarios. The model results indicate that forest cover area would remain essentially the same under the “gain over grain” and “biosphere reserve” scenarios. Coffee plantations would cover almost half the landscape (49%) in the “mining green gold” scenario, whereas arable land would expand and cover more than half of the landscape (57%) in the “food first” scenario. The approach presented here integrates future land use mapping with participatory, narrative-based scenario research to assess the social-ecological outcomes of alternative futures. The translation of narratives onto maps can help researchers and stakeholders better understand and communicate potential land use changes, and facilitate a more spatially nuanced approach to managing or adapting to broad scale socioeconomic changes. Our study constitutes a methodological contribution to the management of land use change, as well as a tool to facilitate transparent policy negotiation and communication at local, government, and NGO levels.

KW - InVEST

KW - landscape

KW - land use and land cover maps

KW - narrative scenarios

KW - plausible futures

KW - spatially explicit land use scenarios

KW - translation rules

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Biology

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/32d643eb-3fc0-3bbc-8e79-48d9bc22ecaf/

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135929683&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5751/ES-13200-270213

DO - 10.5751/ES-13200-270213

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 27

JO - Ecology and Society

JF - Ecology and Society

SN - 1708-3087

IS - 2

M1 - 13

ER -