scholarly journals Global predictions of primary soil salinization under changing climate in the 21st century

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amirhossein Hassani ◽  
Adisa Azapagic ◽  
Nima Shokri
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Soil Salinity ◽  
Soil Salinization ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
West Kazakhstan ◽  
Climate Analysis

AbstractSoil salinization has become one of the major environmental and socioeconomic issues globally and this is expected to be exacerbated further with projected climatic change. Determining how climate change influences the dynamics of naturally-occurring soil salinization has scarcely been addressed due to highly complex processes influencing salinization. This paper sets out to address this long-standing challenge by developing data-driven models capable of predicting primary (naturally-occurring) soil salinity and its variations in the world’s drylands up to the year 2100 under changing climate. Analysis of the future predictions made here identifies the dryland areas of South America, southern and western Australia, Mexico, southwest United States, and South Africa as the salinization hotspots. Conversely, we project a decrease in the soil salinity of the drylands in the northwest United States, the Horn of Africa, Eastern Europe, Turkmenistan, and west Kazakhstan in response to climate change over the same period.

scholarly journals Soil salinization under different climate change scenarios: A global scale analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nima Shokri ◽  
Amirhossein Hassani ◽  
Adisa Azapagic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Soil Salinity ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Soil Salinization ◽  
Water Evaporation ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Salt Affected Soils

<p>Population growth and climate change is projected to increase the pressure on land and water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. This pressure is expected to affect all driving mechanisms of soil salinization comprising alteration in soil hydrological balance, sea salt intrusion, wet/dry deposition of wind-born saline aerosols — leading to an increase in soil salinity. Soil salinity influences soil stability, bio-diversity, ecosystem functioning and soil water evaporation (1). It can be a long-term threat to agricultural activities and food security. To devise sustainable action plan investments and policy interventions, it is crucial to know when and where salt-affected soils occur. However, current estimates on spatio-temporal variability of salt-affected soils are majorly localized and future projections in response to climate change are rare. Using Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, we related the available measured soil salinity values (represented by electrical conductivity of the saturated paste soil extract, EC<sub>e</sub>) to some environmental information (or predictors including outputs of Global Circulation Models, soil, crop, topographic, climatic, vegetative, and landscape properties of the sampling locations) to develop a set of data-driven predictive tools to enable the spatio-temporal predictions of soil salinity. The outputs of these tools helped us to estimate the extent and severity of the soil salinity under current and future climatic patterns at different geographical levels and identify the salinization hotspots by the end of the 21<sup>st</sup> century in response to climate change. Our analysis suggests that a soil area of 11.73 Mkm<sup>2</sup> located in non-frigid zones has been salt-affected in at least three-fourths of the 1980 - 2018 period (2). At the country level, Brazil, Peru, Sudan, Colombia, and Namibia were estimated to have the highest rates of annual increase in the total area of soils with an EC<sub>e</sub> ≥ 4 dS m<sup>-1</sup>. Additionally, the results indicate that by the end of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, drylands of South America, southern and Western Australia, Mexico, southwest United States, and South Africa will be the salinization hotspots (compared to the 1961 - 1990 period). The results of this study could inform decision-making and contribute to attaining the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals for land and water resources management.</p><p>1. Shokri-Kuehni, S.M.S., Raaijmakers, B., Kurz, T., Or, D., Helmig, R., Shokri, N. (2020). Water Table Depth and Soil Salinization: From Pore-Scale Processes to Field-Scale Responses. Water Resour. Res., 56, e2019WR026707. https://doi.org/ 10.1029/2019WR026707</p><p>2. Hassani, A., Azapagic, A., Shokri, N. (2020). Predicting Long-term Dynamics of Soil Salinity and Sodicity on a Global Scale, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 117, 52, 33017–33027. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2013771117</p>

Changing climate, changing forests: The impacts of climate change on forests of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey Rustad ◽  
John Campbell ◽  
Jeffrey S. Dukes ◽  
Thomas Huntington ◽  
Kathy Fallon Lambert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Northeastern United States ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

scholarly journals Technical Note: Linking climate change and downed woody debris decomposition across forests of the eastern United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 6417-6425 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. Russell ◽  
C. W. Woodall ◽  
A. W. D'Amato ◽  
S. Fraver ◽  
J. B. Bradford
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Woody Debris ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Decomposition Rates ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Downed Woody Debris

Abstract. Forest ecosystems play a critical role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Forest carbon (C) is stored through photosynthesis and released via decomposition and combustion. Relative to C fixation in biomass, much less is known about C depletion through decomposition of woody debris, particularly under a changing climate. It is assumed that the increased temperatures and longer growing seasons associated with projected climate change will increase the decomposition rates (i.e., more rapid C cycling) of downed woody debris (DWD); however, the magnitude of this increase has not been previously addressed. Using DWD measurements collected from a national forest inventory of the eastern United States, we show that the residence time of DWD may decrease (i.e., more rapid decomposition) by as much as 13% over the next 200 years, depending on various future climate change scenarios and forest types. Although existing dynamic global vegetation models account for the decomposition process, they typically do not include the effect of a changing climate on DWD decomposition rates. We expect that an increased understanding of decomposition rates, as presented in this current work, will be needed to adequately quantify the fate of woody detritus in future forests. Furthermore, we hope these results will lead to improved models that incorporate climate change scenarios for depicting future dead wood dynamics in addition to a traditional emphasis on live-tree demographics.

scholarly journals Forest adaptation and transition in the eastern united states under climate change : a forest landscape modeling method

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacob Sapp Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Management Scenarios ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Forest Landscape Modeling ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
Linked Model

Forest management is rapidly shifting in focus to address the adaptive capacity of forests under uncertain future climates. Managers and researchers often utilize models to proactively develop strategies for forest adaptation management and in order for these models to provide useful results they must realistically represent a multitude of complex processes. Here we detail a linked-model methodology for predicting the response of forests to climate change over large heterogeneous landscapes under a range of adaptation management scenarios. We used a forest ecosystem process model to simulate forests across the eastern United States under a range of future climate scenarios and found that ecotones between major forest types or natural community types may be the most vulnerable to large declines in biomass due to climate change. We then show that the implementation of a probability-based method for estimating individual tree fire mortality can realistically reproduce conditions observed in field inventory data. Finally, we test the effectiveness of different climate forest adaptation strategies at maintaining or increasing the presence and geographic distribution of species on a heterogeneous landscape under climate change.

scholarly journals Technical Note: Linking climate change and downed woody debris decomposition across forests of the eastern United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 9013-9034 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. Russell ◽  
C. W. Woodall ◽  
A. W. D'Amato ◽  
S. Fraver ◽  
J. B. Bradford
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Woody Debris ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Decomposition Rates ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Downed Woody Debris

Abstract. Forest ecosystems play a critical role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Long-term forest carbon (C) storage is determined by the balance between C fixation into biomass through photosynthesis and C release via decomposition and combustion. Relative to C fixation in biomass, much less is known about C depletion through decomposition of woody debris, particularly under a changing climate. It is assumed that the increased temperatures and longer growing seasons associated with projected climate change will increase the decomposition rates (i.e., more rapid C cycling) of downed woody debris (DWD); however, the magnitude of this increase has not been previously addressed. Using DWD measurements collected from a national forest inventory of the eastern United States, we show that the residence time of DWD may decrease (i.e., more rapid decomposition) by as much as 13% over the next 200 years depending on various future climate change scenarios and forest types. Although existing dynamic global vegetation models account for the decomposition process, they typically do not include the effect of a changing climate on DWD decomposition rates. We expect that an increased understanding of decomposition rates, as presented in this current work, will be needed to adequately quantify the fate of woody detritus in future forests. Furthermore, we hope these results will lead to improved models that incorporate climate change scenarios for depicting future dead wood dynamics, in addition to a traditional emphasis on live tree demographics.

scholarly journals Sea-level rise driven soil salinization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Nevermann ◽  
Amir AghaKouchak ◽  
Nima Shokri
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Soil Salinity ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Soil Salinization ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
Rcp Scenarios

<p>Sea level rise (SLR) is a well-documented aspect of anthropogenic climate change which is primary due to the thermal expansion of seawater and melting of ice caps and glaciers (1). Climate change is expected to exacerbate sea-level rise within the next century, much larger than the observations since the beginning of the recordings. Next to various natural hazards and extreme environmental events such as flooding, the sea level rise poses serious long-standing and possibly irreversible consequences on human timescales in coastal regions. For example, soil salinity is expected to increase near shorelines due to sea level rise. Soil salinization, referring to excess accumulation of salt in soil, is a global problem (2) adversely affecting many environmental and hydrologic processes such as terrestrial ecosystem functioning, water cycle and biodiversity. SLRs shift the saltwater-freshwater boundary in coastal regions which will increase the risk of soil salinization further inland. Considering the growing population living in coastal regions, SLR-driven soil salinization has a severe socio-economic impact posing significant threat to farmlands, wetlands, coastal marshes, forests and other ecosystems. Motivated by the importance of the interaction between SLR, climate change and soil salinization, this study aims to determine how the saltwater-freshwater interface moves under different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios in coastal regions. Groundwater data of coastal wells, Digital Elevation Model’s and satellite images will be used to highlight areas under high risk of soil salinization. The results will enable us to quantify the possible extent of the soil salinization as a result of SLR under different climate scenarios with the associated socio-economic consequences. Such information could support decision making and sustainable resource management under different RCPs.</p><p>1. Moftakhari H.M., Salvadori G., AghaKouchak A., Sanders, B.F., Matthew, R.A. (2017). Compounding Effects of Sea Level Rise and Fluvial Flooding. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 114 (37), 9785-9790.</p><p>2. Hassani, A., Azapagic, A., Shokri, N. (2020). Predicting Long-term Dynamics of Soil Salinity and Sodicity on a Global Scale. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 117 (52) 33017-33027.</p>

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