Know more

Article published in October 2019 in Global Change Biology

There is a clear need for transformative change in the land management and food production sectors to address the global land challenges of climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, combatting land-degradation and desertification, and delivering food security.

In this paper[1], published in Global Change Biology, we assess quantitatively at the global scale the potential of 40 practices for addressing these land challenges, in order to identify those that deliver across more than one challenge, and those that can result in trade-offs across the land challenges.

We found that Increased food productivity, improved cropland management, improved grazing land management, improved livestock management, agroforestry, improved forest management, increased soil organic carbon content, fire management and reduced post-harvest losses deliver medium to large benefits for all land challenges. 

Although most practices can be applied without competing for available land, some, such as land to provide feedstock for bioenergy/BECCS (and under some circumstances, large scale afforestation), could potentially greatly increase demand for land conversion. If applied at scales necessary to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at the scales of several GtCO2yr-1, this increased demand for land could lead to adverse side effects for adaptation, food security and potentially on land degradation and desertification, so safeguards are required to ensure that expansion of energy crops does not impact natural systems and food security.

Further scientific efforts are needed to provide policy with robust, comprehensive and transparent approaches, models and tools for land use forecasting, incorporating multiple-side effects, i.e. biophysical, economic and social. While policies and respective support from the scientific community remain sectoral, cross-linkages between sustainable land management and human wellbeing may be missed.

[1] This analysis formed a component of Chapter 6 of the IPCC Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystem.

 Read the full article here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.14878