What is the role of land-use change for the present, past, and future evolution of the Earth?

The elements for possible consideration in this question have global dimensions. These elements range from carbon storage, food production, the water cycle, climate (including albedo), human societies, to migration. Answering this question requires full Earth system models that are not yet up to the task, in part because the processes that connect key elements of these models are not well constrained or understood. There are many causes of these deficiencies, including the fact that observing land-use change is difficult on the time and space scales needed for documenting and understanding key processes.

7 comments

1. Moderator says:

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   Originally submitted on 2009/08/14 at 11:34am by the user “Sluque”.

   We face the challenge to monitor not just changes in natural systems but also the impact of these changes on the health and persistence of the species that depend on these environments. In order to reach this goal and learn more about habitat quality for key species, a multicriteria based approach is needed. The question is related to scale dependency issues where the landscape level is crucial within a temporal framework. The approach should help to understand changes in landscape structure and composition in order to reach an operational level in monitoring biodiversity. The use of remote sensing and global monitoring models will be essential to capture real land use, land cover changes at different levels

   Sandra Luque
   Research Director
   Cemagref
   France
2. rjthomas says:

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   The huge ecological footprint of man on the land needs to be understood and reduced urgently. The past needs to be studied in order to help predict the future effects of land use change through approaches such as integrated ecosystem assessment modelling.
3. deNoblet says:

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   The real question one should ask is : ‘where should we, in the future, grow food to feed the extra 3 billion people that will be there before the end of the Century ?’ If we trust our models enough (which we don’t) we should be able to say where crops should be grown to a) be productive enough, b) not influence climate / meteorology too much (e.g. reduced feedbacks). This implies enhanced interdisciplinary research between climatologists / agronomists / economy …
4. ywoyessa says:

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   In order to understand the role of land use on global climate change in geneeral and regional climate in particular, I believe it is important to undestand the human-environment dynamics, the driving forces responsible for land use change and the socio-hydrological interactions.
5. designerfutures says:

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   An Integral Foresight framework would explore the interconnected systems and sub-systems impacting on the issue. Scenarios could be developed, lead by a qualified futures research team in consultation with a range of disciplines within and external to the scientific community.
6. apitman says:

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   This is a scale-related question. The evidence that land use change (except through the release of CO2) driven by human activity affects the global climate is weak. The
   evidence that land use change affects regional climate is very strong. So, in framing a research question, we should be careful to identify what we mean by “evolution of the earth”. This is terrifyingly generic question that is too broad to allow answers to be formulated.
7. Bodegard says:

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   In addressing the question, I believe there is an urgent need to significantly improve our knowledge of the composition of ecosystems, e.g. species and genetic composition, as well as the functions of ecosystem processes. In comparison to the resources and attention dedicated to other scientific disciplines, like theoretical physics, our knowledge of basic biology is extremely poor. Such basic knowledge is a fundamental requirement if we are to manage the extreme challenge of supporting 9-10 billion humans in 30-40 years at a standard of living that is equal to ours. In particular we need to drastically improve our ability to manage biological production systems, which are envisaged to support humanity with food, feed, fibre, energy, building material and industrial raw material for ecofirendly products.

   Johan Bodegard
   Director
   Swedish Species Information Centre
   Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala