Spatiotemporal patterns of global land use change: Understanding processes and drivers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Winkler ◽  
Richard Fuchs ◽  
Mark Rounsevell ◽  
Martin Herold
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Spatiotemporal Patterns ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Global Land

<p>Land use change is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss and, hence, a key topic for current sustainability debates and climate change mitigation. To understand its impacts, accurate data of global land use change and an assessment of its extent, dynamics, causes and interrelations are crucial. However, although numerous observational data is publicly available (e.g. from remote sensing), the processes and drivers of land use change are not yet fully understood. In particular, current global-scale land change assessments still lack either temporal consistency, spatial explicitness or thematic detail. <br>Here, we analyse the patterns of global land use change and its underlying drivers based on our novel high-resolution (~1x1 km) dataset of global land use/cover (LULC) change from 1960-2019, HILDA+ (Historic Land Dynamics Assessment+). The data harmonises multiple Earth Observation products and FAO land use statistics. It covers all transitions between six major LULC categories (urban areas, cropland, pasture/rangeland, forest, unmanaged grass-/shrubland and no/sparse vegetation).<br>On this basis, we show (1) a classification of global LULC transitions into major processes of land use change, (2) a quantification of their spatiotemporal patterns and (3) an identification of their major socioeconomic and environmental drivers across the globe. By using temporal cross-correlation, we study the influence of selected drivers on processes such as agricultural land abandonment, deforestation, forest degradation or urbanisation.<br>With this, we are able to map the patterns and drivers of global land use change at unprecedented resolution and compare them for different world regions. Giving new data-driven and quantitative insights into a largely untouched field, we identify tele-coupled globalisation patterns and climate change as important influencing factors for land use dynamics. Learning from the recent past, understanding how socio-economic and environmental factors affect the way humans use the land surface is essential for estimating future impacts of land use change and implementing measures of climate mitigation and sustainable land use policies.</p>

Response of global land evapotranspiration to climate change, elevated CO2, and land use change

2021 ◽  
Vol 311 ◽  
pp. 108663
Author(s):  
Jianyu Liu ◽  
Yuanyuan You ◽  
Jianfeng Li ◽  
Stephen Sitch ◽  
Xihui Gu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Elevated Co2 ◽  
Global Land

Agriculture in the Boreal Forest: Understanding the Impact of Land Use Change on Soil Carbon for Developing Sustainable Community Food Systems 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bysouth ◽  
Merritt Turetsky ◽  
Andrew Spring
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Soil Carbon Stocks ◽  
Carbon Losses

<p>Climate change is causing rapid warming at northern high latitudes and disproportionately affecting ecosystem services that northern communities rely upon. In Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT), climate change is impacting the access and availability of traditional foods that are critical for community health and well-being. With climate change potentially expanding the envelope of suitable agricultural land northward, many communities in the NWT are evaluating including agriculture in their food systems. However, the conversion of boreal forest to agriculture may degrade the carbon rich soils that characterize the region, resulting in large carbon losses to the atmosphere and the depletion of existing ecosystem services associated with the accumulation of soil organic matter. Here, we first summarize the results of 35 publications that address land use change from boreal forest to agriculture, with the goal of understanding the magnitude and drivers of carbon stock changes with time-since-land use change. Results from the literature synthesis show that conversion of boreal forest to agriculture can result in up to ~57% of existing soil carbon stocks being lost 30 years after land use change occurs. In addition, a three-way interaction with soil carbon, pH and time-since-land use change is observed where soils become more basic with increasing time-since-land use change, coinciding with declines in soil carbon stocks. This relationship is important when looking at the types of crops communities are interested in growing and the type of agriculture associated with cultivating these crops. Partnered communities have identified crops such as berry bushes, root vegetables, potatoes and corn as crops they are interested in growing. As berry bushes grow in acidic conditions and the other mentioned crops grow in more neutral conditions, site selection and management practices associated with growing these crops in appropriate pH environments will be important for managing soil carbon in new agricultural systems in the NWT. Secondly, we also present community scale soil data assessing variation in soil carbon stocks in relation to potential soil fertility metrics targeted to community identified crops of interest for two communities in the NWT.  We collected 192 soil cores from two communities to determine carbon stocks along gradients of potential agriculture suitability. Our field soil carbon measurements in collaboration with the partnered NWT communities show that land use conversions associated with agricultural development could translate to carbon losses ranging from 2.7-11.4 kg C/m<sup>2</sup> depending on the type of soil, agricultural suitability class, and type of land use change associated with cultivation. These results highlight the importance of managing soil carbon in northern agricultural systems and can be used to emphasize the need for new community scale data relating to agricultural land use change in boreal soils. Through the collection of this data, we hope to provide northern communities with a more robust, community scale product that will allow them to make informed land use decisions relating to the cultivation of crops and the minimization of soil carbon losses while maintaining the culturally important traditional food system.</p>

CLIMATE- AND LAND USE-INDUCED RISKS TO WATERSHED SERVICES IN THE NYANDO RIVER BASIN, KENYA

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
MWANGI GATHENYA ◽  
HOSEA MWANGI ◽  
RICHARD COE ◽  
JOSEPH SANG
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Sediment Yield ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Surface Condition ◽  
Water Yield ◽  
Minor Effect ◽  
Watershed Services

SUMMARYClimate change and land use change are two forces influencing the hydrology of watersheds and their ability to provide ecosystem services, such as clean and well-regulated streamflow and control of soil erosion and sediment yield. The Soil Water Assessment Tool, SWAT, a distributed, watershed-scale hydrological model was used with 18 scenarios of rainfall, temperature and infiltration capacity of land surface to investigate the spatial distribution of watershed services over the 3587 km2 Nyando basin in Western Kenya and how it is affected by these two forces. The total annual water yield varied over the 50 sub-basins from 35 to 600 mm while the annual sediment yield ranged from 0 to 104 tons ha−1. Temperature change had a relatively minor effect on streamflow and sediment yield compared to change in rainfall and land surface condition. Improvements in land surface condition that result in higher infiltration are an effective adaptation strategy to moderate the effects of climate change on supply of watershed services. Spatial heterogeneity in response to climate and land use change is large, and hence it is necessary to understand it if interventions to modify hydrology or adapt to climate change are to be effective.

scholarly journals MIROC-INTEG-LAND version 1: a global biogeochemical land surface model with human water management, crop growth, and land-use change

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 4713-4747
Author(s):  
Tokuta Yokohata ◽  
Tsuguki Kinoshita ◽  
Gen Sakurai ◽  
Yadu Pokhrel ◽  
Akihiko Ito ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Earth System

Abstract. Future changes in the climate system could have significant impacts on the natural environment and human activities, which in turn affect changes in the climate system. In the interaction between natural and human systems under climate change conditions, land use is one of the elements that play an essential role. On the one hand, future climate change will affect the availability of water and food, which may impact land-use change. On the other hand, human-induced land-use change can affect the climate system through biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects. To investigate these interrelationships, we developed MIROC-INTEG-LAND (MIROC INTEGrated LAND surface model version 1), an integrated model that combines the land surface component of global climate model MIROC (Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate) with water resources, crop production, land ecosystem, and land-use models. The most significant feature of MIROC-INTEG-LAND is that the land surface model that describes the processes of the energy and water balance, human water management, and crop growth incorporates a land use decision-making model based on economic activities. In MIROC-INTEG-LAND, spatially detailed information regarding water resources and crop yields is reflected in the prediction of future land-use change, which cannot be considered in the conventional integrated assessment models. In this paper, we introduce the details and interconnections of the submodels of MIROC-INTEG-LAND, compare historical simulations with observations, and identify various interactions between the submodels. By evaluating the historical simulation, we have confirmed that the model reproduces the observed states well. The future simulations indicate that changes in climate have significant impacts on crop yields, land use, and irrigation water demand. The newly developed MIROC-INTEG-LAND could be combined with atmospheric and ocean models to develop an integrated earth system model to simulate the interactions among coupled natural–human earth system components.

scholarly journals Assessment of impacts of agricultural and climate change scenarios on watershed water quantity and quality, and crop production

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Awoke D. Teshager ◽  
Philip W. Gassman ◽  
Justin T. Schoof ◽  
Silvia Secchi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Water Quantity ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Water Quantity And Quality

Abstract. Modeling impacts of agricultural scenarios and climate change on surface water quantity and quality provides useful information for planning effective water, environmental, and land use policies. Despite the significant impacts of agriculture on water quantity and quality, limited literature exists that describes the combined impacts of agricultural land use change and climate change on future bioenergy crop yields and watershed hydrology. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) eco-hydrological model was used to model the combined impacts of five agricultural land use change scenarios and three downscaled climate pathways (representative concentration pathways, RCPs) that were created from an ensemble of eight atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs). These scenarios were implemented in a well calibrated SWAT model for the Raccoon River watershed (RRW) located in western Iowa. The scenarios were executed for the historical baseline, early-century, mid-century, and late-century periods. The results indicate that historical and more corn intensive agricultural scenarios with higher CO2 emissions consistently result in more water in the streams and greater water quality problems, especially late in the 21st century. Planting more switchgrass, on the other hand, results in less water in the streams and water quality improvements relative to the baseline. For all given agricultural landscapes simulated, all flow, sediment and nutrient outputs increase from early-to-late century periods for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios. We also find that corn and switchgrass yields are negatively impacted under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios in the mid and late 21st century.

Land conversions and forest dynamics in a riparian forest zone in south east Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nwabueze Ikenna Igu ◽  
Joseph O. Duluora ◽  
Uzoamaka R. Onyeizugbe
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Riparian Forest ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Forest Landscape ◽  
Sparse Vegetation

The rate at which forest ecosystems are lost and modified across tropical landscapes are alarming, yet proper documentation and proactive measures to curtail this still remains a huge challenge in most areas. This research focused on elucidating the ongoing land use change patterns of a riparian forest landscape, its current impacts on the ecosystem and land surface temperature, as well as its likely future scenarios for the zone. LANDSAT images were downloaded for 1988, 2003 and 2018 and used to show the dynamics for the zone, its drivers and their varying temperatures. Maximum Likelihood Classification algorithm was used for the classification and the land-use classes were categorized as: Water body, Farms and Sparse Vegetation, Built-up Areas, Bare Surface, and Thick Vegetation. Furthermore, Markov Chain Analysis was employed for understanding the future patterns of land use change in the zone. Land use categories experienced changes over the three epochs, but among all, farmlands/ sparse vegetation and thick vegetation had the most significant changes from 7.70 to 58.67 percent and 73.56 to 20.58 percent, respectively; implying that much of the forestland use/cover (which constituted the bulk of the land initially; 73.56 percent) were converted to agricultural land use. This same trend at which agriculture grew in the zone was seen to affect the land surface temperature for zone (Pearson correlation coefficient of  0.99 with p = 0.0058 at 0.05 level of significance). Future projection for the zone equally showed that agricultural land use will likely dominate the entire landscape in the coming years and a consequent impact on the climate and ecosystem expected as well. On that note, intensive agricultural practices that seek to maximize allocated farm units were advocated. Such initiatives will help to ensure that agricultural growth is contained within delimited zones so that haphazard cultivations, reductions in ecological value of the forest landscape and consequent climatic impacts could be managed across the region.

The Sensitivity of Regional Climate Projections to SSP-Based Land Use Changes in the North American CORDEX Domain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Bukovsky ◽  
Linda Mearns ◽  
Jing Gao ◽  
Brian O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
North American ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Rcp Scenarios ◽  
The North

<p>In order to assess the combined effects of green-house-gas-induced climate change and land-use land-cover change (LULCC), we have produced regional climate model (RCM) simulations that are complementary to the North-American Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (NA-CORDEX) simulations, but with future LULCCs that are consistent with particular Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).  In standard, existing NA-CORDEX simulations, land surface characteristics are held constant at present day conditions.  These new simulations, in conjunction with the NA-CORDEX simulations, will help us assess the magnitude of the changes in regional climate forced by LULCC relative to those produced by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.     </p><p>Understanding the magnitude of the regional climate effects of LULCC is important to the SSP-RCP scenarios framework.  Whether or not the pattern of climate change resulting from a given SSP-RCP pairing is sensitive to the pattern of LULCC is an understudied problem.  This work helps address this question, and will inform thinking about possible needed modifications to the scenarios framework to better account for climate-land use interactions.</p><p>Accordingly, in this presentation, we will examine the state of the climate at the end of the 21<sup>st</sup> century with and without SSP-driven LULCCs in RCM simulations produced using WRF under the RCP8.5 concentration scenario.  The included LULCC change effects have been created following the SSP3 and SSP5 narratives using an existing agricultural land model linked with a new long-term spatial urban land model. </p>

scholarly journals Land-use change may exacerbate climate change impacts on water resources in the Ganges basin

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1411-1435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Tsarouchi ◽  
Wouter Buytaert
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Ganges River

Abstract. Quantifying how land-use change and climate change affect water resources is a challenge in hydrological science. This work aims to quantify how future projections of land-use and climate change might affect the hydrological response of the Upper Ganges river basin in northern India, which experiences monsoon flooding almost every year. Three different sets of modelling experiments were run using the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model (LSM) and covering the period 2000–2035: in the first set, only climate change is taken into account, and JULES was driven by the CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) outputs of 21 models, under two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), whilst land use was held fixed at the year 2010. In the second set, only land-use change is taken into account, and JULES was driven by a time series of 15 future land-use pathways, based on Landsat satellite imagery and the Markov chain simulation, whilst the meteorological boundary conditions were held fixed at years 2000–2005. In the third set, both climate change and land-use change were taken into consideration, as the CMIP5 model outputs were used in conjunction with the 15 future land-use pathways to force JULES. Variations in hydrological variables (stream flow, evapotranspiration and soil moisture) are calculated during the simulation period. Significant changes in the near-future (years 2030–2035) hydrologic fluxes arise under future land-cover and climate change scenarios pointing towards a severe increase in high extremes of flow: the multi-model mean of the 95th percentile of streamflow (Q5) is projected to increase by 63 % under the combined land-use and climate change high emissions scenario (RCP8.5). The changes in all examined hydrological components are greater in the combined land-use and climate change experiment. Results are further presented in a water resources context, aiming to address potential implications of climate change and land-use change from a water demand perspective. We conclude that future water demands in the Upper Ganges region for winter months may not be met.

Sustainable Land Use and Watershed Management in Response to Climate Change Impacts

2017 ◽  
pp. 255-295
Author(s):  
Nguyen Kim Loi ◽  
Nguyen Thi Huyen ◽  
Le Hoang Tu ◽  
Vo Ngoc Quynh Tram ◽  
Nguyen Duy Liem ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Stream Flow ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Gis Environment ◽  
Soil And Water

The Srepok river basin (28,600km2) is located in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. There are many critical issues for soil and water resource management in the basin. Therefore, to make suitable adaptation plans, decision makers need to understand the extent of the potential impact of both climate change and human activity on local soil and water resources. The objective of this chapter was to investigate changes in stream flow, sediment load, and hydrological processes resulting from land use change and climatic variation. Plausible scenarios of land use change developed in a GIS environment based on current conditions, information from the area, and climate change scenarios were built on outputs of GCMs from the SEA-START. These changes were then inputted into SWAT model to project future hydrological variables. Results demonstrated that stream flow was predominant, followed by evapotranspiration. Groundwater was more predominant than surface water. This has been one of the best outstanding advantages in the Srepok watershed.

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