Developing a methodology for the analysis of the anthropogenic intervention on natural capital is an ambitious process. The LANDSUPPORT project implemented a Decision Support System (DSS) to help support better land use planning. The LANDSUPPORT DSS aimed at creating an innovative and intuitive environment that will improve the readability of measured and modelled geo-information, making it accessible to a wide range of stakeholders. A cross-evaluation analysis has been developed to measure the ability to support policy-related stakeholders and help them make informed decisions.
In the field of land use and land management, appropriate data are essential to support effective land planning in which different sources of available information need to be synthesised to provide an holistic picture of their combined effect. Policy stakeholders play a pivotal role in designing the DSS to be transversal and able to cope with issues at local, national and regional scales. National and regional land monitoring projects are often evenly disseminated or unsuitable for policy needs. Many attempts were recently made to overcome this problem, and the concept of decision dashboards is now extensively used to address these challenges. DSS are growing in popularity. They are often distributed as open access online interfaces that use georeferenced data and visualization tools to present model metrics and key performance indicators. Data behind DSSs can be static or dynamic as it is for the LANDSUPPORT DSS. The set of tools developed at different scales within different domains of application, are regularly updated and obtained from the state-of-the-art scientific development. With the user in mind, the LANDSUPPORT DSS encourages an extensive range of policy stakeholders to perform land use analysis, improving the tool's usability and making informed decisions for land sustainability. Decisions on land management at local scale are already benefiting from such information systems.
For the EU, specific tools were developed, tailored to the specific needs of stakeholders. For instance, in line with its strategic plan, Italy uses specific functionality and indicator sets to support its decision-making across agriculture sectors (viticulture and oliviculture tools are tailored examples of the DSS dynamism).
Another goal of DSS is to improve geodata integration across highly compartmentalized sectors. Each tool which appears in the dashboard will undergo regular improvements as the backend platform is refined. The LANDSUPPORT tool allows for the analysis of soil sealing in the land take tool, the land degradation neutrality tool (SDG 15.3.1 indicator), and the climate change resilience through another dedicated tool embedding future scenarios of climate change based on CORDEX ensemble models and (Representative Concentration Pathways, RCPs). Given the challenge of identifying and gaining access to good quality data from local partners, the LANDSUPPORT project fostered the capacity building among partners through workshops and other interactions and drew attention to better data management and improved accessibility and sharing. Embedding data access and its use in end-user organizations is vital to generating and sustaining interest in the dashboards.
This report presents the analysis carried out to test the LANDSUPPORT DSS’s ability to support EU policies when applied at the EU scale. Key EU policies of interest include the 7th Environmental Action Porgamme; COM 2006/231 Soil Strategy, Dir 2000/60/EC Water Directive; Dir 2007/2/EC INSPIRE Directive. and the land-related targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular, SDGs 2 “Zero Hunger”, 3 “god healh and well-being”, 13 “Climate action”, 15, with a special emphasis to the key SDG 15.3.1, “achieving a land degradation-neutral world” (LDN) and climate change (CC) mitigation goals.
