Towards a set of IPCC SRES urban land use scenarios: Modelling urban land use in the Madrid region

The objectives of this study are to test the applicability of urban land use change models for the simulation of climate change scenarios for large regions and to define the future research needs in this topic. Specifically, the scenarios A1, A2 and B2 produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) have been used for the implementation of three urban land use scenarios in the Madrid region. A cellular automata-based model has been used for the modelling component of the experiment. The land use scenarios were developed for an area of about 10,000 km2. This area includes about 340 municipalities of the Madrid Autonomous Community and other municipalities beyond it representing the functional region of Madrid. The IPCC SRES emissions scenarios were used to produce the storylines describing the narrative socio-economic and political conditions that will drive future land use change. The scenarios produced cover the period 2000-2040. CORINE land use datasets were used as input data into the model. This European-wide dataset creates the possibility of modelling large European areas using a single implementation of the model. This approach opens new possibilities for the assessment of the impacts of urban land use development (e.g., transport needs, increasing exposure to natural hazards, impacts from climate change, urban sprawl). The results of the experiment were useful for studying aspects such as urban sprawl and sub-urbanisation. These two effects of urban growth have become a serious concern in Europe. Simulating sprawl and sub-urbanisation by using land use change models provides planners with a powerful tool for territorial decision-making. Indeed, the inclusion of SRES scenarios in an urban land use modelling approach enables the exploration of potential environmental impacts arising from several paths of socio-economic evolution and climate change. The proposed methodology also provides the possibility to discern the effects of urban and regional planning instruments and policies at local and regional level. © 2008, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.