The conference on Impact Assessment of Land Use Changes intended to:

1. Bring together a scientific community with expert knowledge in impact assessment, land use and landscape research, environmental economics, rural sociology and the science policy interface.
2. Share ideas, approaches and innovative results on impact assessment of land use and policy support within a broad interdisciplinary forum.

Following an invitation by the Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, some 300 scientists from 120 research institutes in Europe, South America and Asia used the opportunity to present and discuss the methods and models that were developed for ex-ante sustainability impact assessment during the last four years. The results – mainly coming from the four EU funded large-scale interdisciplinary projects SENSOR, EFORWOOD, PLUREL and SEAMLESS – show an extremely broad range of data and a wide variety of potential applications, especially in the field of regional development in rural areas.

Land use is a key human activity, which shapes socio-economic development and alters structures and processes in the environment. At the European level, land use policy making is committed to foster sustainable pathways of natural resource use and rural development. Supporting social cohesion and decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation is a key target. Manifested with the idea of multifunctional land use, the environment is understood to provide a portfolio of functionalities, which, through proper land use management, can be exploited as environmental goods and services for the benefit of society. To do this in a sustainable way, tools are required that can provide anticipations of possible impacts of land use decisions at all levels of governance.

Ex-ante sustainability impact assessment is a steadily growing scientific field that has an increasing relevance in decision making regarding policy frameworks and their impact on landscape and environment. At the European Commission level, sustainability impact assessment is designed to integrate all single sector impact assessment types with the aim of better regulation and fostering sustainable development objectives. The four EU funded Integrated Projects develop tools for ex-ante Sustainability Impact Assessment to support decision making on policies related to multifunctional land use in European regions by combining the experience and expertise of various areas of science, such as land use, environmental economics, socio-economics and landscape research.

The meeting is organised by the EU FP6 IP SENSOR in cooperation with the IP's EFORWOOD, PLUREL and SEAMLESS :

SENSOR IP	EFORWOOD IP	PLUREL IP	SEAMLESS IP
Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) Müncheberg, Germany. SENSOR Co-ordinator	Humboldt-University Berlin, Faculty of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Berlin, Germany, local convener	Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus, Germany, organising committee	Alterra - Green World Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands