Climatic suitability predictions for the cultivation of macadamia and walnuts in existing land-use zones and forest management regimes under climate change scenarios: addressing food security in the mid-hills of Nepal

SUMMARYSpatial simulation may be used to model the potential effects of current biodiversity approaches on future habitat modification under differing climate change scenarios. To illustrate the approach, spatial simulation models, including landscape-level forest dynamics, were developed for a semi-natural grassland of conservation concern in a southern Italian protected area, which was exposed to woody vegetation encroachment. A forest landscape dynamics simulator (LANDIS-II) under conditions of climate change, current fire and alternative management regimes was used to develop scenario maps. Landscape pattern metrics provided data on fragmentation and habitat quality degradation, and quantified the spatial spread of different tree species within grassland habitats. The models indicated that approximately one-third of the grassland area would be impacted by loss, fragmentation and degradation in the next 150 years. Differing forest management regimes appear to influence the type of encroaching species and the density of encroaching vegetation. Habitat modifications are likely to affect species distribution and interactions, as well as local ecosystem functioning, leading to changes in estimated conservation value. A site-scale conservation strategy based on feasible integrated fire and forest management options is proposed, considering the debate on the effectiveness of protected areas for the conservation of ecosystem services in a changing climate. This needs to be tested through further modelling and scenario analysis, which would benefit from the enhancement of current modelling capabilities of LANDIS-II and from combination with remote sensing technologies, to provide early signals of environmental shifts both within and outside protected areas.

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Landscapes that work for biodiversity and people

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aau6020 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 362 (6412) ◽

pp. eaau6020 ◽

Cited By ~ 146

Author(s):

C. Kremen ◽

A. M. Merenlender

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Food Security ◽

Forest Management ◽

Management Practices ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Community Action ◽

Government Agencies ◽

Management Techniques ◽

Working Lands

How can we manage farmlands, forests, and rangelands to respond to the triple challenge of the Anthropocene—biodiversity loss, climate change, and unsustainable land use? When managed by using biodiversity-based techniques such as agroforestry, silvopasture, diversified farming, and ecosystem-based forest management, these socioeconomic systems can help maintain biodiversity and provide habitat connectivity, thereby complementing protected areas and providing greater resilience to climate change. Simultaneously, the use of these management techniques can improve yields and profitability more sustainably, enhancing livelihoods and food security. This approach to “working lands conservation” can create landscapes that work for nature and people. However, many socioeconomic challenges impede the uptake of biodiversity-based land management practices. Although improving voluntary incentives, market instruments, environmental regulations, and governance is essential to support working lands conservation, it is community action, social movements, and broad coalitions among citizens, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies that have the power to transform how we manage land and protect the environment.

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Modelling carbon and nitrogen dynamics in forest ecosystems of Central Russia under different climate change scenarios and forest management regimes

Ecological Modelling ◽

10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.11.009 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 222 (14) ◽

pp. 2262-2275 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

Vladimir N. Shanin ◽

Alexander S. Komarov ◽

Alexey V. Mikhailov ◽

Sergei S. Bykhovets

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Management ◽

Forest Ecosystems ◽

Nitrogen Dynamics ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Carbon And Nitrogen ◽

Central Russia ◽

Management Regimes ◽

Carbon And Nitrogen Dynamics

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The potential habitat of desert locusts is contracting: predictions under climate change scenarios

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.12311 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. e12311

Author(s):

Jingyun Guan ◽

Moyan Li ◽

Xifeng Ju ◽

Jun Lin ◽

Jianguo Wu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Social Impact ◽

Regional Cooperation ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Desert Locust ◽

Maxent Model ◽

Potential Habitat

Desert locusts are notorious for their widespread distribution and strong destructive power. Their influence extends from the vast arid and semiarid regions of western Africa to northwestern India. Large-scale locust outbreaks can have devastating consequences for food security, and their social impact may be long-lasting. Climate change has increased the uncertainty of desert locust outbreaks, and predicting suitable habitats for this species under climate change scenarios will help humans deal with the potential threat of locust outbreaks. By comprehensively considering climate, soil, and terrain variables, the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model was used to predict the potential habitats of solitary desert locusts in the 2050s and 2070s under the four shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP126, SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585) in the CMIP6 model. The modeling results show that the average area under the curve (AUC) and true skill statistic (TSS) reached 0.908 ± 0.002 and 0.701, respectively, indicating that the MaxEnt model performed extremely well and provided outstanding prediction results. The prediction results indicate that climate change will have an impact on the distribution of the potential habitat of solitary desert locusts. With the increase in radiative forcing overtime, the suitable areas for desert locusts will continue to contract, especially in the 2070s under the SSP585 scenario, and the moderately and highly suitable areas will decrease by 0.88 × 106 km2 and 1.55 × 106 km2, respectively. Although the potentially suitable area for desert locusts is contracting, the future threat posed by the desert locust to agricultural production and food security cannot be underestimated, given the combination of maintained breeding areas, frequent extreme weather events, pressure from population growth, and volatile sociopolitical environments. In conclusion, methods such as monitoring and early warning, financial support, regional cooperation, and scientific prevention and control of desert locust plagues should be further implemented.

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Modeling and assessing land-use and hydrological processes to future land-use and climate change scenarios in watershed land-use planning

Environmental Geology ◽

10.1007/s00254-007-0677-y ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 623-634 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Author(s):

Yu-Pin Lin ◽

Nien-Ming Hong ◽

Pei-Jung Wu ◽

Chien-Ju Lin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Planning ◽

Hydrological Processes ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Watershed Land Use

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Modelling Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) in response to climate change scenarios for the SAARC nations

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment ◽

10.1007/s10661-020-8144-2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 192 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Ram Kumar Singh ◽

Vinay Shankar Prasad Sinha ◽

Pawan Kumar Joshi ◽

Manoj Kumar

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Climate Change Scenarios

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Investigating Future Urbanization’s Impact on Local Climate under Different Climate Change Scenarios in MEGA-urban Regions: A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta, China

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos11070771 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 771

Author(s):

Pak Shing Yeung ◽

Jimmy Chi-Hung Fung ◽

Chao Ren ◽

Yong Xu ◽

Kangning Huang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Pearl River Delta ◽

Pearl River ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Local Climate ◽

The Pearl River Delta ◽

The Future ◽

The Pearl River

Urbanization is one of the most significant contributing factors to anthropogenic climate change. However, a lack of projected city land use data has posed significant challenges to factoring urbanization into climate change modeling. Thus, the results from current models may contain considerable errors in estimating future climate scenarios. The Pearl River Delta region was selected as a case study to provide insight into how large-scale urbanization and different climate change scenarios impact the local climate. This study adopts projected land use data from freely available satellite imagery and applies dynamic simulation land use results to the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The simulation periods cover the summer periods in 2010 and 2029–2031, the latter of which is averaged to represent the year 2030. The WRF simulation used the observed local climate conditions in 2010 to represent the current scenario and the projected local climate changes for 2030 as the future scenario. Under all three future climate change scenarios, the warming trend is prominent (around 1–2 °C increase), with a widespread reduction in wind speed in inland areas (1–2 ms−1). The vulnerability of human health to thermal stress was evaluated by adopting the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT). The results from the future scenarios suggest a high public health risk due to rising temperatures in the future. This study provides a methodology for a more comprehensive understanding of future urbanization and its impact on regional climate by using freely available satellite images and WRF simulation tools. The simulated temperature and WBGT results can serve local governments and stakeholders in city planning and the creation of action plans that will reduce the potential vulnerability of human health to excessive heat.

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Quantification of climate change and land cover/use transition impacts on runoff variations in the upper Hailar Basin, NE China

Hydrology Research ◽

10.2166/nh.2020.022 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 51 (5) ◽

pp. 976-993

Author(s):

Yuhui Yan ◽

Baolin Xue ◽

Yinglan A ◽

Wenchao Sun ◽

Hanwen Zhang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Precipitation Change ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Reference Period ◽

Ne China ◽

Runoff Change ◽

Hailar Basin ◽

The Impact

Abstract Quantification of runoff change is vital for water resources management, especially in arid or semiarid areas. This study used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) distributed hydrological model to simulate runoff in the upper reaches of the Hailar Basin (NE China) and to analyze quantitatively the impacts of climate change and land-use change on runoff by setting different scenarios. Two periods, i.e., the reference period (before 1988) and the interference period (after 1988), were identified based on long-term runoff datasets. In comparison with the reference period, the contribution rates of both climate change and land-use change to runoff change in the Hailar Basin during the interference period were 83.58% and 16.42%, respectively. The simulation analysis of climate change scenarios with differential precipitation and temperature changes suggested that runoff changes are correlated positively with precipitation change and that the impact of precipitation change on runoff is stronger than that of temperature. Under different economic development scenarios adopted, land use was predicted to have a considerable impact on runoff. The expansion of forests within the basin might induce decreased runoff owing to enhanced evapotranspiration.

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The Impact of Land Use/Land Cover Change (LULCC) on Water Resources in a Tropical Catchment in Tanzania under Different Climate Change Scenarios

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11247083 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (24) ◽

pp. 7083 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kristian Näschen ◽

Bernd Diekkrüger ◽

Mariele Evers ◽

Britta Höllermann ◽

Stefanie Steinbach ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Water Resources ◽

Land Cover ◽

Water Balance ◽

Land Cover Change ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Land Use Land Cover ◽

The Impact

Many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are prone to land use and land cover change (LULCC). In many cases, natural systems are converted into agricultural land to feed the growing population. However, despite climate change being a major focus nowadays, the impacts of these conversions on water resources, which are essential for agricultural production, is still often neglected, jeopardizing the sustainability of the socio-ecological system. This study investigates historic land use/land cover (LULC) patterns as well as potential future LULCC and its effect on water quantities in a complex tropical catchment in Tanzania. It then compares the results using two climate change scenarios. The Land Change Modeler (LCM) is used to analyze and to project LULC patterns until 2030 and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is utilized to simulate the water balance under various LULC conditions. Results show decreasing low flows by 6–8% for the LULC scenarios, whereas high flows increase by up to 84% for the combined LULC and climate change scenarios. The effect of climate change is stronger compared to the effect of LULCC, but also contains higher uncertainties. The effects of LULCC are more distinct, although crop specific effects show diverging effects on water balance components. This study develops a methodology for quantifying the impact of land use and climate change and therefore contributes to the sustainable management of the investigated catchment, as it shows the impact of environmental change on hydrological extremes (low flow and floods) and determines hot spots, which are critical for environmental development.

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