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Landscape Mosaics

Regional Alternative Landscape Futures for the Northern Rivers of NSW

This project combines a regional landscape ecology approach with urban and regional planning to develop a methodology to examine the design, analysis, and implementation, of alternative planned scenarios for regional Australia. The project drew on experience from the Carl Steinitz (Harvard) Alternative Landscape Futures (ALF) approach.

ALF analysis is a long-term, large area, land and environment assessment approach for assisting communities and policy makers make decisions about planning the future of that area. It provides a spatially explicit, regional scale perspective on the combined effects of the multiple policies, plans, population and land use pressures affecting the availability of natural resources and ecosystem services for a geographic area.

The ALF approach contributes new tools, knowledge, and potentially a wide range of applications to guide policy and planning of future sustainable landscapes across rural and regional Australia. These were demonstrated through an, in itself useful and practical, case study of north-eastern NSW – an area facing enormous “Sea Change” development, urbanisation and consequent land use and landscape change.

A number of publications and downloads relating to the project are available, including the final report and appendices, news items, and other downloads.

These pages also include historical land use/land cover (LULC), population change, and projected urban growth trend images for the northern and southern portions of the study area.

The project was funded by Land & Water Australia.

Contact: Professor David Brunckhorst