Socio-Environmental Modelling of Future Resilient states of the Sandy Landscapes in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, sandy soil landscapes are vital for food production, drinking water supply, biodiversity maintenance, and human habitation. However, climate change, water scarcity, and complex issues arising from intensive land use have imposed significant challenges on the resilience of these landscapes. Moreover, the current state of land use within these landscapes has shown to be unsustainable, and a transition to heterogeneity in land uses has been suggested to alleviate the challenges. Despite recognizing the imposed challenges, there is still a lack of actionable knowledge towards adaptation, revealing uncertainty about the resilience of these landscapes. We will build upon the notion that these landscapes can be resilient based on their existing biophysical features and owing to their internal socio-ecological feedbacks. By integrating resilience thinking into socio-ecological modeling, the research aims to identify future resilient landscapes for Dutch sandy soils. Towards this, I attempt to develop an agent-based model representing the landscapes of interest, emphasizing the potential of stochastic responses and interdependency of the social and ecological system. Using this model, I will investigate the effectiveness of adaptation at different levels of society and how alternative land use configurations within the landscape can affect the resilience of the system. The output of this research will provide insights into alternative resilient states for transdisciplinary pathway development towards a resilient future at the project level.