A Framework for Developing High-Resolution Scenarios at the Landscape Scale: The Norfolk Broads

Scenarios coupled with land-use/cover data are often used as tools for investigating the possible future reaction of landscapes to climatic or socioeconomic perturbation. Yet, a number of factors limit scenario application within local landscapes, in particular inapplicable scenario drivers, inappropriate spatial and temporal scales and incompatibility of available data. Landscape characterisation has become a useful tool for providing localised future drivers of change but readily available datasets often lack the information required to translate changes described to local areas. This is an important requirement, especially to land managers working at scales such as that of the land-parcel. Consequently, one must often select and localise existing coarser-resolution scenarios to provide local information on likely local changes. In this work, a novel methodology is presented and applied to downscale national scenarios to local landscapes. Using a case study of the Norfolk Broads UK, scenario types are described before the range of available scenarios, and land-cover and landscape characterisation data which might be selected for localisation is highlighted. The role of drivers in influencing scenario outcomes is considered and the potential benefits of incorporating landscape characterisation information in the downscaling process are discussed.