Squaring the Circle? Combining Models, Indicators, Experts and End-Users in Integrated Land-Use Management Support Tools

Christine Frst 0 1 Martin Volk 0 1 Franz Makeschin 0 1 0 M. Volk Department of Computational Landscape Ecology (CLE), UFZHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research , Leipzig, Germany 1 C. Frst (&) F. Makeschin Institute for Soil Science and Site Ecology, Dresden University of Technology , Pienner Road 19, 01737 Tharandt, Germany The most important challenges faced in the field of integrated land-use management are (i) harmonizing and integrating different datasets, (ii) selecting appropriate indicators, (iii) fitting suitable models to adequate scales, and finally (iv) integrating data, indicators and models into systems that allow both a high level of participation and flexibility with the adaptation to a variety of questions and applications. The articles of this special issue ''Squaring the Circle? Combining Models, Indicators, Experts and End-Users in Integrated Land-Use Management Support Tools'' demonstrate the challenges that are related to this topic. The case studies present examples of such integrated systems in order to recommend best practices to support land-use management and to reveal existing shortcomings. As a conclusion, seven features of a successful applicable integrated land-use management support system are derived: (1) ability to deal with discontinuity in information and datasets, (2) contribution to solve the problem of indicator diversity, (3) structuring the decision-making process, (4) support of participation processes in generating decisions, (5) development, comparison and evaluation of land-use alternatives, (6) assessment of the efficiency and trade-offs of management options, and (7) assistance of stakeholders in group communication processes. - Land-use management is a multidisciplinary field that is confronted by an increasing level of complexity. Issues such as cross-sectoral policy making (e.g. agriculture, forestry), land-use planning and integrated ecosystem service management (e.g. water management, nature protection, tourism) make it necessary to involve multiple stakeholders (Sterk and others 2009). Increasing demands from a public that is scrutinizing decision-making regarding land-use management and its effects on environmental conditions and ecosystem services add additional complexity (Messner and others 2006; Newham and others 2006; Milligan and others 2009). In a society characterized by globalization effects, large scale interactions between agencies and institutions at an international level influence decision-making even at a local level. As a consequence of such multiple and sometimes confusing interactions, land-use management decisionmakers are being confronted with an increasing number and diversity of rules, regulations and directives. This circumstance often poses problems with the application at different spatial scale levelsfrom the global to the continental level and from the continental to the national, regional and local level, respectively. This means that the scale of integrated land-use management (including analysis, modeling and assessment) is not restricted to the global level, but includes local and regional models of ecosystems and environmental processes (Parker and others 2002). Sectoral models at the local and regional level (e.g. agriculture and forestry) generally neglect interactions with other land-use types, and oftentimes ignore landscape structure aspects and spatial interactions of different landuse types, which are critical for a proper understanding of environmental processes; such models are often not compatible in their temporal and spatial resolution (Parker and others 2008; Baskent and Keles 2005; Botequilha Leitao and Ahern 2002). Another well-known reason for an increase in the complexity of land-use decisions is the dynamic nature of the environmental parameters (climate, site conditions, etc.), which leads to uncertainties regarding their interactions (e.g. interactions between climate change and changes in ecosystem processes), and the rate and extent of change (Matthies and others 2007). Moreover, environmental data are officially available, access is often difficult (Allan and others 2006; Volk and others 2008), and data bases focused on different scale levels and land use categories are often incompatible. Furthermore, the selection and interpretation of suites of sustainability indicators, some of which are focused on aspects of land-use change, can send ambiguous signals to land-use managers. There is an excessive number and variety of indicators to assess the impact of human activities on the environment at different scaleswhich leads to problems with the interpretation and harmonization of these indicators and oftentimes limits their usefulness in support of land-use management decisions (see e.g. Wijewardana 2008). Another problem relates to the impact of the growing diversity of regulations with increasing temporal dimensions in management planning. An example is forest management planning with its division into strategic (long term = at least one rotation period) planning, tactical (mid-term = up to 30 years) planning and operational (short term = up to 10 years) planning (Baskent and Keles 2005). Strategic planning in forestry must necessarily respect development, resource provision or protection targets from politics and society. Once a strategic decision such as conversion of coniferous into deciduous forest stands is made, tactical and operational planning are forced to translate this decision into concrete planning measures and operations. In case, a strategic decision must be revised due to new, complementary or competing regulations, managing the tree species composition and stand structure according to a new strategy is difficult or takes at least several decades. Integrated land-use management assimilates in a comprehensive manner methodological approaches in management and evaluation from different land-use sectors. Appropriate management requires (i) harmonizing and integrating different datasets, (ii) selecting the right indicators, (iii) fitting the right models to the right scale, and (iv) integrating data, indicators and models into systems that allow both a high level of participation and flexibility in application to different questions. This seems to be comparable to the challenge of squaring a circle. Squaring a circle is used here as a metaphor for doing something logically or intuitively impossible as it was in the ancient world the construction of a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge (see e.g. Hobson 1913). Numerous approaches have been developed and are still being developed to promote an integrated land-use management. Originally developed to support business managers, decision support systems (DSS) have attracted much interest in the field of environmental management. Environmental decision support systems and procedures that combine multicriteria analysis (...truncated)