Nordic Bioeconomy Pathways: Future narratives for assessment of water-related ecosystem services in agricultural and forest management

Jelena Rakovic,Katarina Kyllmar,Dennis Collentine,Katri Rankinen,Jan Vermaat,Marc I Stutter,Martyn N Futter

doi:10.1007/s13280-020-01389-7

Abstract

Further development of the bioeconomy, the substitution of bioresources for fossil resources, will lead to an increased pressure on land and water resources in both agriculture and forestry. It is important to study whether resultant changes in land management may in turn lead to impairment of water services. This paper describes the Nordic Bioeconomy Pathways (NBPs), a set of regional sectoral storylines nested within the global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) framework developed to provide the BIOWATER research program with land management scenarios for projecting future developments to explore possible conflicts between land management changes and the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The NBPs are a set of narrative storylines capturing a range of plausible future trajectories for the Nordic bioeconomy until 2050 and that are fit for use within hydrological catchment modelling, ecosystem service studies and stakeholder dialogue about possible changes in agricultural and forestry management practices.

Highlights

Development of the bioeconomy is on the policy agenda across Europe and considered an essential component of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies (European Commission 2018)
While bioeconomy developments are motivated by a desire to achieve environmental goals, it is not clear how this ambition in combination with recent incentives for sustainable intensification of agriculture to feed a growing world population (Rockstrom et al 2017; Tilman et al 2011) and the ensuing transformation in land cover and land management will affect the provision of ecosystem services
A concern over conflicts between Water Framework Directive (WFD) goals and the emerging land-based bioeconomy led to the creation of BIOWATER, a Nordic Centre of Excellence dedicated to examining the combined impacts of bioeconomy developments and climate change on land use, freshwater quality and water availability in the Nordic countries based on socioeconomic scenarios projecting possible future conditions in 2050

Summary

Introduction

Development of the bioeconomy (bioresource-based economy) is on the policy agenda across Europe and considered an essential component of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies (European Commission 2018). As part of the bioeconomy policy agenda, there are incentives to increase land-based biomass production of bioresource-based materials and fuels (Nordic Council of Ministers 2018). A concern over conflicts between WFD goals and the emerging land-based bioeconomy led to the creation of BIOWATER, a Nordic Centre of Excellence dedicated to examining the combined impacts of bioeconomy developments and climate change on land use, freshwater quality and water availability in the Nordic countries based on socioeconomic scenarios projecting possible future conditions in 2050 A concern over conflicts between WFD goals and the emerging land-based bioeconomy led to the creation of BIOWATER, a Nordic Centre of Excellence dedicated to examining the combined impacts of bioeconomy developments and climate change on land use, freshwater quality and water availability in the Nordic countries based on socioeconomic scenarios projecting possible future conditions in 2050 (https://biowater. info/)

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