Koch et al. (2011)
In order to develop pathways to increase the benefits from regional water resources for humans and ecosystems, the GLOWA Jordan River project comprises the elaboration of regional development scenarios for Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Since land-use change strongly affects water quantity and quality as well as biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, land-use change scenarios form an essential part of these regional development scenarios. We have applied the spatially explicit land-use change model LandSHIFT.R as integration tool within the scenario analysis of GLOWA Jordan River in order to develop land-use change scenarios for Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority up to 2050. The objective of this paper is to present the four resulting spatially explicit land-use change scenarios. All four scenarios show an increase in urban and built-up area and agricultural area by 2050. Two of these scenarios stand out due to strong rangeland expansion. Reasons are a large increase in livestock numbers and the application of a sustainable rangeland management strategy, respectively. We discuss possible future environmental problems and potential subsequent applications of the land-use change scenarios in form of environmental impact studies. Furthermore, we highlight necessary enhancements of the land-use change scenarios.