The project brought together a group of Australian researchers and managers with a broad range of expertise to identify current and emerging economies (‘drivers’) affecting regional agricultural landscapes and to suggest beneficial transformational changes for successful adaptation. A key challenge in these landscapes is altering how we use the land for ongoing, viable production while increasing native biodiversity. The group:
- identified the major historical influences on Australian land use and the current social and economic drivers that are likely to increase in the future
- assessed the condition of five agro-climatic regions (adapted from Williams et al., 2002 and Hobbs and McIntyre, 2005) using a Delphi method. A small (4-person) expert panel scored the impact of historical and future scenarios on ten sustainability indicators (biodiversity, water, soil, social capital, built capital, food/fibre, carbon, energy, minerals and cultural). Five regions were chosen: Southern Mediterranean, Northern tropical, Central arid, North-east subtropical, and South-east temperate. This was an iterative process whereby scores were revisited until internal consistency between regions, scenarios, and indicators was achieved
- made projections of regional condition under the four global Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) based on van Vuuren et al. (2011)
- developed recommendations about land use and management, institutional and policy arrangements and social processes that will assist adaptation towards a values-rich vision of Australia in 2100.
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We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
This work was funded by ACEAS, a facility of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project.
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