Multi-scale land use analysis for agricultural policy assessment: a model-based study in Ilocos Norte province, Philippines.

Pressures on the natural resources, especially land and water, continue to increase as a result of an ever-increasing world population and continuing economic growth. These pressures originate from the many claims of stakeholders at different scales on the limited resources, and are aggravated by their different and often conflicting goals. Discussions on alternative resource uses, prioritizing different goals, and formulation and implementation of land use policies would greatly benefit from a quantitative assessment of the economic, social and environmental benefits and costs associated with the alternatives. In this study, a multi-scale and model-based approach was developed and applied in support of joint-learning, policy discussions and decision-making with respect to agricultural land use. The methodology was operationalized, in consultation with stakeholders, for the province of Ilocos Norte in the northwest of the Philippines, and its most populous municipality, Batac.

Six optimization models with different specifications were developed for different spatial scales: one for the farm, four for the municipal and one for the provincial scale...