Conceptual Framework: Factors Influencing Land Use Change (SRUC-E3-1/C3-1 WP1B)

The research involved reviewing literature relating to the decision-making behaviours of land owners towards land use change. We wanted to know the underlying factors influencing decision-making of a range of landowning groups and find an appropriate model to use in our analysis in later stages.

From the models and approaches we reviewed, the Individual Social Material (ISM) model, the policy ‘nudge’ approach and the concept of the ‘moment of change’ were all deemed appropriate and useful for developing a framework to map and provide meaning for land use change towards net zero targets amongst a wide range of owners and land uses. A visual representation of the framework was produced.

From here, papers were reviewed that included decision-making factors of landowners and these were extracted to provide a list of individual, social and material factors to be used in latter stages of the research. A selection of papers that used policy nudges (mainly regarding tree planting or climate change mitigation activities) were reviewed, to provide useful examples of this concept in action. Finally, papers using the concept of the ‘moment of change’ were also reviewed.