Land and soil are vital for society to meet its needs for food, drinking water, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Many of society’s environmental challenges, such as climate change, depletion of natural resources and loss of biodiversity, are related to the use of (both rural and urban) land and soil.
Many stakeholders are involved in making balanced and sustainable land use and land management decisions. These stakeholders include drinking water and energy producers, distributors and suppliers; spatial planners, consultants, brownfield developers and remediation contractors; farmers, foresters and food, companies; citizens; financiers; policy makers and regulators.
They have both theoretical and practical knowledge, tools and skills, experience with land use and land management decisions. What do they additionally need to realize sustainable solutions to solve societal challenges? This raises questions and debate on innovative governance and financial arrangements, science-policy-practice interactions, stakeholder interaction, communities of practice, co-creation, and instruments for awareness building.
This theme connects with the general goal of this conference to promote interdisciplinary collaboration, to connect the biophysical science community with the social sciences: How to do this effectively?
Linda Maring, Deltares
Maaike Blauw Deltares
Sandra Boekhold, RIVM