Land management is considered one of the essential keys to identify and implement adaptation strategies to natural hazards (including, but not limited to, flood prevention) while preserving the sustainability of EU regional developments.
The Action “FLOODS: Prediction, Mitigation, Impact Assessment” aims, amongst others, to assess the impacts of changes in climate and land use and to evaluate adaptation strategies for extreme events. For this purpose, an integrated methodology for the assessment of current and future natural risks at the European scale is being developed based on some key modeling tools.



The Monitoring Land Use / Cover Dynamics (MOLAND) model is the component of the framework that contributes to the definition of scenarios of land use evolution at regional, national and continental scales. This allows the evaluation of spatial planning options in the context of adaptation to extreme weather events and sustainable development in urban and regional areas.

MOLAND provides a methodology that enables the development of a wide range of applications, yet each specifically targeted and differing in a number of essential characteristics. MOLAND can therefore be defined as a flexible and generic modelling framework, rather than a model as such.

MOLAND has been so far used in the following application

• urban development and urban sprawl
• regional development following policy oriented scenarios
• analysis of impact and exposure to natural hazards

Most recent development includes

• addition of a transport module
• application related to adaptation to climate change and ecological compensation

The land use model is now being extended with the development of a modelling tool for the preparation of scenarios of land use evolutions for large European areas (EuScanner).

Products under development as part of the Work Programme 2009 are

1. Definition and production of scenarios of land use for European climatic zones as input to regional climate models.
2. Definition and development of the first release of the European Database of Vulnerabilities (EVDAB) for urban areas, in support to the Clearing House mechanism for adaptation to climate change envisaged in the EC White Paper “Adapting to climate change: Towards a European framework for action”
    

Contact person: Carlo Lavalle