Visualising future landscapes: re•flect

When planning land use changes, discussions and representations can feel abstract; a mix of scales, timelines, and interventions that can be difficult to translate into something tangible.

The re•flect project aims to change that, allowing people to see what their landscape would look like across a variety of dimensions, timescales, and interventions.

Over the past two years, we’ve been developing an interactive decision-making tool that makes environmental knowledge more accessible to non-experts, empowering stakeholders to participate meaningfully in ecosystem restoration. An intuitive interface gives all stakeholders the ability to experiment with and explore their landscape, while generating metrics that they can compare to those used in discussions.

The tool enables users to explore trade-offs among land-use and ecosystem service priorities—such as agricultural productivity, recreation, aesthetic value, climate and water regulation, biodiversity, and restoration costs. Built with video game technology, it integrates geographic and ecological models with real-time visual feedback to simulate how planning decisions shape the landscape and its ecological and economic consequences.

The tool will be tested with real stakeholders in workshops to evaluate its effectiveness in fostering more inclusive, transparent, and evidence-informed environmental planning. Beyond supporting engagement, these workshops will also generate insights for scientists and policymakers into how stakeholders make decisions for ecosystem restoration and what factors influence those choices.

While initially developed around a case study of riverside forests in Tayside, the tool can be used throughout Scotland, giving all stakeholders the ability to test, adjust, and explore landscape interventions.