Hotspots of uncertainty in land-use and land-cover change projections: a global-scale model comparison
Reinhard Prestele,Peter Alexander,Mark Rounsevell,Almut Arneth,Katherine Calvin,Jonathan C. Doelman,David A. Eitelberg,Kerstin Engström,Shinichiro Fujimori,Tomoko Hasegawa,Petr Havlik,Florian Humpenöder,Atul K. Jain,Tamás Krisztin,Page Kyle,Prasanth Meiyappan,Alexander Popp,Ronald D. Sands,Rüdiger Schaldach,Jan Schüngel,Elke Stehfest,Andrzej Tabeau,Hans van Meijl,Jasper van Vliet,Peter H. Verburg +24 more
TLDR
It is concluded that improving the quality and consistency of observational data utilized in the modeling process and improving the allocation mechanisms of LULC change models remain important challenges.Abstract:
Model-based global projections of future land-use and land-cover (LULC) change are frequently used in environmental assessments to study the impact of LULC change on environmental services and to provide decision support for policy. These projections are characterized by a high uncertainty in terms of quantity and allocation of projected changes, which can severely impact the results of environmental assessments. In this study, we identify hotspots of uncertainty, based on 43 simulations from 11 global-scale LULC change models representing a wide range of assumptions of future biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. We attribute components of uncertainty to input data, model structure, scenario storyline and a residual term, based on a regression analysis and analysis of variance. From this diverse set of models and scenarios, we find that the uncertainty varies, depending on the region and the LULC type under consideration. Hotspots of uncertainty appear mainly at the edges of globally important biomes (e.g., boreal and tropical forests). Our results indicate that an important source of uncertainty in forest and pasture areas originates from different input data applied in the models. Cropland, in contrast, is more consistent among the starting conditions, while variation in the projections gradually increases over time due to diverse scenario assumptions and different modeling approaches. Comparisons at the grid cell level indicate that disagreement is mainly related to LULC type definitions and the individual model allocation schemes. We conclude that improving the quality and consistency of observational data utilized in the modeling process and improving the allocation mechanisms of LULC change models remain important challenges. Current LULC representation in environmental assessments might miss the uncertainty arising from the diversity of LULC change modeling approaches, and many studies ignore the uncertainty in LULC projections in assessments of LULC change impacts on climate, water resources or biodiversity.read more
Citations
More filters
Mitigation Pathways Compatible with 1.5°C in the Context of Sustainable Development
Joeri Rogelj,Drew Shindell,Kejun Jiang,Solomone Fifita,Veronika Ginzburg,Collins Handa,Haroon S. Kheshgi,Shigeki Kobayashi,Elmar Kriegler,Luis Mundaca,Roland Séférian,M.V. Vilarino +11 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a survey of the work of the authors of this paper, including the following authors: Katherine Calvin (USA), Joana Correia de Oliveira de Portugal Pereira (UK/Portugal), Oreane Edelenbosch (Netherlands/Italy), Johannes Emmerling (Italy/Germany), Sabine Fuss (Germany), Thomas Gasser (Austria/France), Nathan Gillett (Canada), Chenmin He (China), Edgar Hertwich (USA/Austria), Lena Höglund-Is
Impacts of 1.5°C Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg,Daniela Jacob,Marco Bindi,Sally Brown,I. A. Camilloni,Arona Diedhiou,Riyanti Djalante,Kristie L. Ebi,Francois Engelbrecht,Joel Guiot,Yasuaki Hijioka,S. Mehrotra,Antony J. Payne,Sonia I. Seneviratne,Adelle Thomas,Rachel Warren,G. Zhou,Sharina Abdul Halim,Michelle Achlatis,Lisa V. Alexander,Myles R. Allen,Peter Berry,Christopher Boyer,Edward Byers,Lorenzo Brilli,Marcos Silveira Buckeridge,William W. L. Cheung,Marlies Craig,Neville Ellis,Jason P. Evans,Hubertus Fischer,Klaus Fraedrich,Sabine Fuss,Anjani Ganase,Jean-Pierre Gattuso,Peter Greve,Tania Guillén Bolaños,Naota Hanasaki,Tomoko Hasegawa,Katie Hayes,Annette L. Hirsch,Chris D. Jones,Thomas Jung,Markku Kanninen,Gerhard Krinner,David M. Lawrence,Timothy M. Lenton,Debora Ley,Diana Liverman,Natalie M. Mahowald,Kathleen L. McInnes,Katrin J. Meissner,Richard J. Millar,Katja Mintenbeck,Daniel M. Mitchell,Alan C. Mix,Dirk Notz,Leonard Nurse,Andrew Emmanuel Okem,Lennart Olsson,Michael Oppenheimer,Shlomit Paz,Juliane Petersen,Jan Petzold,Swantje Preuschmann,Mohammad Feisal Rahman,Joeri Rogelj,Hanna Scheuffele,Carl-Friedrich Schleussner,Daniel Scott,Roland Séférian,Jana Sillmann,Chandni Singh,Raphael Slade,Kimberly Stephenson,Tannecia S. Stephenson,Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla,Mark Tebboth,Petra Tschakert,Robert Vautard,Richard Wartenburger,Michael Wehner,Nora Marie Weyer,Felicia S. Whyte,Gary W. Yohe,Xuebin Zhang,Robert B. Zougmoré +86 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of women's sportswriters in South Africa and Ivory Coast, including: Marco Bindi (Italy), Sally Brown (UK), Ines Camilloni (Argentina), Arona Diedhiou (Ivory Coast/Senegal), Riyanti Djalante (Japan/Indonesia), Kristie L. Ebi (USA), Francois Engelbrecht (South Africa), Joel Guiot (France), Yasuaki Hijioka (Japan), Shagun Mehrotra (USA/India), Ant
Journal Article
Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere
TL;DR: In this article, the Earth system has entered a new geological epoch, spatially explicit global estimates of human populations and their use of land were analysed across the Holocene for their potential to induce irreversible novel transformation of the terrestrial biosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
Anthropogenic land use estimates for the Holocene – HYDE 3.2
Kees Klein Goldewijk,Kees Klein Goldewijk,Arthur H. W. Beusen,Arthur H. W. Beusen,Jonathan C. Doelman,Elke Stehfest +5 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an update and extension of HYDE, the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE version 3.2), which is an internally consistent combination of historical population estimates and allocation algorithms with time-dependent weighting maps for land use.
Journal ArticleDOI
Losses, inefficiencies and waste in the global food system.
Peter Alexander,Peter Alexander,Calum Brown,Almut Arneth,John Finnigan,Dominic Moran,Dominic Moran,Mark Rounsevell,Mark Rounsevell +8 more
TL;DR: The findings suggest that influencing consumer behaviour, e.g. to eat less animal products, or to reduce per capita consumption closer to nutrient requirements, offer substantial potential to improve food security for the rising global population in a sustainable manner.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design
TL;DR: The fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) will produce a state-of-the- art multimodel dataset designed to advance the authors' knowledge of climate variability and climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Global Consequences of Land Use
Jonathan A. Foley,Ruth DeFries,Gregory P. Asner,Carol C. Barford,Gordon B. Bonan,Stephen R. Carpenter,F. Stuart Chapin,Michael T. Coe,Michael T. Coe,Gretchen C. Daily,Holly K. Gibbs,Joseph H. Helkowski,Tracey Holloway,Erica A. Howard,Christopher J. Kucharik,Chad Monfreda,Jonathan A. Patz,I. Colin Prentice,Navin Ramankutty,Peter K. Snyder +19 more
TL;DR: Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Multimodel Inference Understanding AIC and BIC in Model Selection
TL;DR: Various facets of such multimodel inference are presented here, particularly methods of model averaging, which can be derived as a non-Bayesian result.
Journal ArticleDOI
The representative concentration pathways: an overview
Detlef P. van Vuuren,Detlef P. van Vuuren,Jae Edmonds,Mikiko Kainuma,Keywan Riahi,Allison M. Thomson,Kathy Hibbard,George C. Hurtt,George C. Hurtt,Tom Kram,Volker Krey,Jean-Francois Lamarque,Toshihiko Masui,Malte Meinshausen,Nebojsa Nakicenovic,Nebojsa Nakicenovic,Steven J. Smith,Steven K. Rose +17 more
TL;DR: The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) as discussed by the authors is a set of four new pathways developed for the climate modeling community as a basis for long-term and near-term modeling experiments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges
David Dudgeon,Angela Arthington,Mark O. Gessner,Zen'ichiro Kawabata,Duncan Knowler,Christian Lévêque,Robert J. Naiman,Anne-Hélène Prieur-Richard,Doris Soto,Melanie L. J. Stiassny,Caroline A Sullivan +10 more
TL;DR: This article explores the special features of freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities and advocates continuing attempts to check species loss but urges adoption of a compromise position of management for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning and resilience, and human livelihoods.
Related Papers (5)
Global Consequences of Land Use
Jonathan A. Foley,Ruth DeFries,Gregory P. Asner,Carol C. Barford,Gordon B. Bonan,Stephen R. Carpenter,F. Stuart Chapin,Michael T. Coe,Michael T. Coe,Gretchen C. Daily,Holly K. Gibbs,Joseph H. Helkowski,Tracey Holloway,Erica A. Howard,Christopher J. Kucharik,Chad Monfreda,Jonathan A. Patz,I. Colin Prentice,Navin Ramankutty,Peter K. Snyder +19 more
Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity
Eric F. Lambin,Patrick Meyfroidt +1 more
The representative concentration pathways: an overview
Detlef P. van Vuuren,Detlef P. van Vuuren,Jae Edmonds,Mikiko Kainuma,Keywan Riahi,Allison M. Thomson,Kathy Hibbard,George C. Hurtt,George C. Hurtt,Tom Kram,Volker Krey,Jean-Francois Lamarque,Toshihiko Masui,Malte Meinshausen,Nebojsa Nakicenovic,Nebojsa Nakicenovic,Steven J. Smith,Steven K. Rose +17 more