flowchart TD
A["National GOBLIN pathway"] --> B["Transition incidence<br/>Where does adjustment fall?"]
B --> C["Spatial response potential<br/>What can released land support?"]
C --> D["Spatial transformability<br/>Can competing future land uses fit?"]
D --> E["Spatial flexibility<br/>Is one geography necessary?"]
GOBLIN-Spatial
Where national agricultural and land-use pathways fall across Ireland, and whether the resulting spatial transition is feasible.
The question
National AFOLU pathways can specify how livestock numbers, land release and future land uses change without showing where those changes fall.
GOBLIN-Spatial asks:
When a nationally coherent agricultural transition requires restructuring, where does transition pressure concentrate, what can the released land support, and can competing future land-use requirements be accommodated within the available geography?
GOBLIN supplies the national pathway. GOBLIN-Spatial resolves its geography and tests spatial feasibility.
How it works
The framework is a spatial stress-test of transition pathways, not a prediction of individual farmer or parcel decisions.
Evidence and scale
The historical reconstruction covers 2015–2025 and is anchored to the 2020 Census of Agriculture at Electoral Division level. Higher-level livestock controls maintain national accounting consistency while preserving validated local structure.
The model combines agricultural statistics with land, soil and drainage information, LPIS context and explicit eligibility controls.
What it measures
GOBLIN-Spatial can identify:
- where livestock adjustment and production exposure are concentrated;
- where land is released under a national pathway;
- what physical and agricultural opportunities exist within that transition space;
- whether competing future land-use requirements can fit within finite eligible land; and
- whether a feasible outcome depends on a narrow geography or can be delivered through alternatives.
A central distinction is maintained throughout:
Land released is not automatically land eligible, available, allocated or adopted.
What it does not claim
The model does not predict individual farmer behaviour, household welfare, market prices, parcel-level adoption or the exact geography that will exist in 2050.
Those questions require behavioural, farm-level or market models.
Research context
GOBLIN-Spatial is being developed at the University of Galway within the wider GOBLIN modelling framework and the FUSION/FORESIGHT research environment.
My doctoral research is supervised by David Styles and Cathal O’Donoghue.
Public status
The model architecture and methodological logic are public. Manuscript-facing findings and figures are added only when they are ready for public release.