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Strassburg, Bernardo B. N., Latawiec, Agnieszka E., Creed, Anna, Nguyen, Nga, Sunnenberg, Gilla, Miles, Lera, Lovett, Andrew 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0554-9273, Joppa, Lucas, Ashton, Ralph, Scharlemann, Jörn P. W., Cronenberger, Felipe and Iribarrem, Alvaro
(2014)
Biophysical suitability, economic pressure and land-cover change: A global probabilistic approach and insights for REDD+.
Sustainability Science, 9 (2).
pp. 129-141.
ISSN 1862-4065
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Abstract
There has been a concerted effort by the international scientific community to understand the multiple causes and patterns of land-cover change to support sustainable land management. Here, we examined biophysical suitability, and a novel integrated index of “Economic Pressure on Land” (EPL) to explain land cover in the year 2000, and estimated the likelihood of future land-cover change through 2050, including protected area effectiveness. Biophysical suitability and EPL explained almost half of the global pattern of land cover (R 2 = 0.45), increasing to almost two-thirds in areas where a long-term equilibrium is likely to have been reached (e.g. R 2 = 0.64 in Europe). We identify a high likelihood of future land-cover change in vast areas with relatively lower current and past deforestation (e.g. the Congo Basin). Further, we simulated emissions arising from a “business as usual” and two reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) scenarios by incorporating data on biomass carbon. As our model incorporates all biome types, it highlights a crucial aspect of the ongoing REDD + debate: if restricted to forests, “cross-biome leakage” would severely reduce REDD + effectiveness for climate change mitigation. If forests were protected from deforestation yet without measures to tackle the drivers of land-cover change, REDD + would only reduce 30 % of total emissions from land-cover change. Fifty-five percent of emissions reductions from forests would be compensated by increased emissions in other biomes. These results suggest that, although REDD + remains a very promising mitigation tool, implementation of complementary measures to reduce land demand is necessary to prevent this leakage.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Acknowledgments: This study was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Planetary Skin Institute and the UN-REDD Programme. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | sdg 13 - climate action,sdg 15 - life on land ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Business and Local Government Data Research Centre (former - to 2023) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Pure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Oct 2013 20:56 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2024 01:19 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/43671 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11625-013-0209-5 |
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