The Land Use Change Dilemma...

LAND USE CHANGE DILEMMA...

How worse can it get?

Land use plays a very important role in providing essential ecosystem goods as a result of crops grown, animals raised, the timber harvested and the infrastructural development. However, land use alters the ecosystem functions ranging from climate regulation due to greenhouse gas emissions; regulation of bio-geochemical cycles; provision of freshwater; biodiversity and soil fertility maintenance. Coupled with other factors like increasing population and industrialization, Land Use Change (LUC) creates a scenario where there are trade-offs between maintaining a functioning ecosystem and satisfying human needs. The created effects span from local to global and could reach a point of no return-tipping point. A tipping point occurs when a small change triggers a nonlinear response in the internal dynamics of part of a system; radically, and potentially irreversibly, shifting into a different state (Lenton, 2011).

Land use can be broadly defined to include changes in land cover (e.g. conversion of forest to cropland) and all forms of land management (Arima et al., 2011 and Houghton, 2010). LUC, in part, leads to global environmental change (Davi, 1997 and Hostert et al., 2011) that threaten biodiversity(Davi, 1997  and Cozzuol, et al, 2002), the natural ecosystems, and the services they offer. Land use influences the flux of mass and energy that are altered by change in land-cover patterns (Davi, 1997). LUC is also the second largest source of human-induced greenhouse gas emission, mainly due to deforestation in the tropics and subtropics (Don and Freibauer, 2011). The net release of carbon from land-use change, along with the other terms in the global carbon budget, helps define (by difference) a residual terrestrial sink (Houghton, 2010). The estimated annual  global net carbon emissions from LUC give a gradually increasing trend in emissions with an annual range that varies between ±0.2 and ±0.4 PgC yr−1 of the mean (Houghton, 2010).

The current expansion of global population that is exacerbated by intense resource utilization (Fuxian, 2012 and Zhu & Woodcock, 2014) threatens the world's ecosystem. Anthropogenic alteration of land has been evident over the past centuries but the recent rates of change are higher than ever ( Hansen et al., 2010). These rates are even expected to intensify in the coming decades owing to the increasing demand for biomass and accelerating world population (Nonhebel &Kastner, 2011; Kastner et al., 2012). The United Nations Population Division projects that the global population will be between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050 compared to the current population of 7.1 billion people. Feeding a growing world population may require an additional 2.7–4.9 Mha of cropland per year on average (Lambin & Meyfroidt, 2011). The actual amount will depend on future diets, food wastages, and food-to-feed efficiency in animal production (Wirsenius, et.al. 2010).

Poverty dynamics have also lead to shifting cultivation systems by converting primary forests to crop land and secondary forest fallows (Barrett et.al, 2011 and Coomes et al., 2011). As a result, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a net 1.6 ± 0.8 Gt of atmospheric carbon per year emanates from LUC.

The demand for bioenergy as an alternative source of energy has increased in the recent past (Miyake et al., 2012). In 2010, for instance, the global ethanol production reached 1.5 million barrels a day up from about 300,000 in 2000. Production of biodiesel grew more than 20-fold, surpassing 335,000 barrels a day in 2010. This is dominated by the US, Brazil, and the EU that contribute 44, 27, and 17% of production, and 44, 23, and 23% of consumption, respectively (US Energy Information Administration, 2011). These bio-fuels come from feed stocks such as corn and sugarcane for ethanol; palm oil, soy, and rapeseed for biodiesel. The use of biofuels has increased land competition, leading to global LUC ((Miyake et al.,2012 and Witcover et al., 2013) that causes an array of environmental and socioeconomic issues (Miyake et al., 2012). The production is stimulated by an array of policies that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through utilization of clean energy. 0However, converting land like forests and peat-lands that has large carbon stocks causes the most emissions (Witcover et al., 2013).

To crown it all, the changes in the extent and composition of forests, grasslands, wetlands and other ecosystems have large impacts on the provision of ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation and returns (Polasky et.al, 2011).

Policy implications and recommendations?

Land systems need to be understood and modelled as open systems with large flows of goods, people, and capital that connect local land use with global-scale factors (Lambin & Meyfroidt, 2011). It is enormously important to take ecosystem services into account in making land-use and land-management decisions and linking such decisions to incentives that will accurately reflect social returns.

Despite the increasing global rate in LUC, a number of developing countries have managed a land use transition over the recent decades that simultaneously led to an increase in forest cover and agricultural production. These countries have relied on a range of practices: land use zoning, forest protection, increased reliance on imported food and wood products, creation of off-farm jobs, foreign capital investments and remittances.

The climate response to LUC has a strong regional component hence there is need for policy makers to understand the regionally specific climate implications of future LUC scenarios. Because global climate models are expensive and time consuming to operate, simple model emulation techniques may be required to efficiently translate different scenarios of land-use change and other forcings into decision relevant climate outcomes. The perspectives on biodiversity value needs to be factored into the decision-making process.

Policy mechanisms that encourage investments in LUC-prone areas should be encouraged at all levels. Investments that increase land productivity and environmental protection need to be stimulated through exploring certifying production that avoids land competition; and adopt (Witcover et al., 2013). 

Reference

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Barrett, C. B., Travis, A. J., & Dasgupta, P. (2011). On biodiversity conservation and poverty traps. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(34), 13907-13912.

Coomes, O. T., Takasaki, Y., & Rhemtulla, J. M. (2011). Land-use poverty traps identified in shifting cultivation systems shape long-term tropical forest cover. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(34), 13925-13930.

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Lenton, T. M. (2011). Early warning of climate tipping points. Nature Climate Change, 1(4), 201-209.

Miyake, S. Renouf, M. Peterson, A., McAlpine, C. and Smith C. (2012). Land-use and environmental pressures resulting from current and future bioenergy crop expansion: A review. Journal of Rural Studies, 28,650-658

Polasky, S., Nelson, E., Pennington, D., & Johnson, K. A. (2011). The impact of land-use change on ecosystem services, biodiversity and returns to landowners: A case study in the State of Minnesota. Environmental and Resource Economics, 48(2), 219-242.

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