The value of change: A scenario assessment of the effects of bioeconomy driven land use change on ecosystem service provision

Policy makers in Nordic countries envisage a developing bioeconomy as an important element in the transition towards a fossil-energy-free future. However, although the shape of such a bioeconomy is unclear, impacts on land use and land management are likely. To analyse the possible impact on ecosystem services value of this transition, we used five scenarios that describe possible socio-economic environments in the four Nordic countries in the year 2050. These five Nordic Bioeconomy Pathways (NBPs) have been labelled in brief as: 'sustainability first', 'conventional first', 'self-sufficiency first', 'city first' and 'growth first'. In this paper, we adapted an existing integrating framework of ecosystem service delivery to accommodate these NBPs and esti-mated economic value of all services for six study catchments across the Nordic countries: Odense (DK), Simojoki (FI), Haldenvassdraget (NO), Orrevassdraget (NO), Sa center dot vjaan (SE) and Vindela center dot lven (SE). We articulated the sce-nario storylines to a set of numerical attributes per NBP using input from secondary data sources and interviews with stakeholder representatives and local experts. We made land use change spatially explicit based on the catchment's physical characteristics and used links between catchment attributes and ecosystem services flow to estimate annual ecosystem services generation in biophysical and monetary units. Outcomes suggest: the value of active recreation increases more in 'sustainability first' and 'growth first' than in other scenarios; variations in total value are largest among catchments under 'city first'; the overall rank order of ecosystem services value within catchments largely remains unchanged under all NBPs. We conclude that outdoor recreation contributes a high benefit to society that is likely not adequately considered relative to provisioning services in current de-cision making, and that these benefits appear sensitive to how a bioeconomy will develop. Overall, the estimated summed value delivered in these catchments is highest under the 'sustainability first' and 'growth first' scenarios.