In all four Nordic Biowater countries, national stakeholder interactions are presently on-going to discuss how a future with bioeconomy will affect the rural land use. Biowater’s Module 1 has refined the five Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs, see below) into five Nordic Bioeconomy Pathways, complete with a set of 15 attributes for agricultural and forested lands.
Discussions during the group works in the Norwegian stakeholder workshop. Photo: Eva Skarbøvik
In order to further assess these scenarios and to collect hands-on information, Biowater has engaged stakeholders from different sectors (agriculture, forestry and industry), as well as water managers at different levels. Through various methods (workshops, group work, interviews) we ask how the five different scenarios would affect certain aspects of future management of rural lands.
For example, how may the diversity of the cropping system be under the five different scenarios? Will it be more intense, with a low diversity of crops, or will it be diversified and novel, with high diversity of crops? And how will the forests be managed? Will there be fertilized monocultures with clear-felling, or will there be more focus on mixed species stands with more environmentally friendly harvesting?
- Finnish participants discussing future land use in rural areas of Finland. Photo: Eija Pouta.
The next step in this work is to use the scenarios as inputs to modelling work. This will enable us to better predict how a future with increased focus on bioeconomy will affect freshwaters throughout the Nordic countries.
The Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs).
We base our scenario work on the five Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs). These comprise:
- SSP1: a world of sustainability-focused growth and equality;
- SSP2 a “middle of the road” world where trends broadly follow their historical patterns;
- SSP3 a fragmented world of “resurgent nationalism”;
- SSP4 a world of ever-increasing inequality; and
- SSP5 a world of rapid and unconstrained growth in economic output and energy use (read more).
Feature photo: Finnish participants discussing scenarios. Photo: Ejia Pouta.