scholarly journals The role of risk in the context of climate change, land use choices and crop production: evidence from Zambia

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
A De Pinto ◽  
VH Smith ◽  
RD Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Crop Production

scholarly journals Analysing the safe and just operating space of agriculture in the world: past, present and future

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajishnu Roy ◽  
Kousik Pramanick
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Ecological Footprint ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Nitrogen Use ◽  
Freshwater Use ◽  
Safe Operating ◽  
Arable Land Use

AbstractAgriculture, along with industry and household sector are three major sectors of human consumption. Agriculture has proved to be a major contributor to exceeding planetary boundaries. Here, we have explored the impact of agriculture in the Earth system processes, through eight dimensions of planetary boundaries or safe operating spaces: climate change (10.73%), freshwater use (91.56%), arable land use (37.27%), nitrogen use (95.77%), phosphorus use (87.28%), ecological footprint (19.42%), atmospheric pollution (2.52% - 38.08%) and novel entities. In this work, we have also shown role of agriculture to the socio-economic development dimensions: gender equality, employment and economic growth. We have shown that the safe operating limits for agriculture are going to decline by almost 55% (climate change), 300% (freshwater use), 50-55% (arable land use), 180% (nitrogen use), 265% (phosphorus use) and 20% (ecological footprint) in 2050, if the most inefficient way of consumption is chosen and continued. To alleviate the role of agriculture in transgressing planetary boundaries, it is indispensable to comprehend how many roles of agriculture is playing and where which target should be set to framework the national agricultural policies in coherence with attaining sustainable development goals of UN by 2030.

scholarly journals Socioeconomics drive population change in the world's largest carnivores

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Frederick Johnson ◽  
Nick J.B. Isaac ◽  
Agustin Paviolo ◽  
Manuela Gonzalez-Saurez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Population Change ◽  
Population Declines ◽  
Population Changes ◽  
Wildlife Population ◽  
Development Goals

Land-use and climate change have been linked to wildlife population declines, but the role of socioeconomic factors in driving declines, and promoting population recoveries, remains relatively unexplored despite its likely importance. Here, we evaluate a comprehensive array of potential drivers of population changes observed in some of the world's most charismatic species - large mammalian carnivores. Our results reveal a strong role of human socioeconomic development, which we find has a greater impact on population change than habitat loss and climate change. Increases in socioeconomic development are linked to sharp population declines but, importantly, once development is high, carnivore populations have the potential to recover. These links between human development and wildlife population health highlight the challenges ahead to achieve the different UN Sustainable development goals.

Understanding the Nexus between Climate Change, the Shift in Land Use toward Cashew Production and Rural Food Security in Ghana; the Experiences of Farmers in the Transition Zone of Ghana

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Adjei ◽  
Moses Ackah Anlimachie
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Food Crops ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
Crop Failure ◽  
Small Holding ◽  
Study District

This study summarises the findings from a study investigating rural small-holding farmers’ experiences on the shift from food crop to cashew in the forest/savanna transitional agro-ecological zone of Ghana and its impact on rural food security. Using a mix method approach, the study sampled the views of 400 farmers from 9 farming communities in the Wenchi Municipality of Ghana via questionnaire and semi-structured interview and collated statistical data on crop production to trace the nexus between climate change, agrarian land-use decisions and food security. The study found evidence of increasing shift from food crop to cashew production. This was evidenced by increasing cashew cultivation and cashew output and decreasing total land acreage for food crops and increasing food insecurity of farmers. The findings revealed that about 71% of farmers had expanded their cashew farms and another 41.0% have turned their food crops’ lands to cashew production. Besides cashew production, (57.0%) has overtaken the traditional food crop -maize (25.5%) production in terms of output.  Instructively, the study found that the main motivation for the shift from food crop to cashew production is not only to maximise income in bulk, but also climate change adaptability issues. The study found that the cashew crop is resilient in adapting to the changing climate and less prone to pests’ invasion compared to maize in the study District. The study found that food security among rural folks had been seriously compromised by the conversion of farmlands from food crop to cashew farming. Although, the study found that female farmers have higher consciousness to food security yet less motivated to shift from food crop to cashew crop production compared to men.  Worryingly, females are the hardest hit group because of their low ownership of or access to farmlands and low voices of women in farmland use decision making in a men-dominant rural extended family setting of the study District. The study concludes that climate change adaptability concern has introduced a new set of risks including crop failure due to changing rainfall pattern and increasing incidence of pest invasions forcing the rural folks to compromise innovative indigenous farming focus and practices that have helped them to navigate extreme food poverty. This study, therefore, argues for improved food crop seeds tailored to the specific climatic context and innovative farming practices that beef-up small-holding farmers’ capacity to navigate climate change to continually produce food crop to ensure rural food security and sustainability.

The role of land cover, land use, and atmospheric transport for the mismatch of flowering and atmospheric pollen seasonality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Menzel ◽  
Ye Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Climate Change Effects ◽  
Pollen Transport ◽  
Cutting Regimes

<p>Aeroallergens contribute a major climate change impact on human health since warming favours the production and advances the release of plant pollen. This goes in line with a widely observed advance of flowering in response to increasing temperatures. However, documented plant phenological changes vary with species traits, seasons, and sites. Nevertheless, the start and end of flowering dates are known to build a solid baseline for assessing the spatial and temporal patterns in pollen calendars. A closer look at the match/mismatch of flowering and start of pollen season dates reveals considerable differences which may be also indirectly linked to climate change. In this talk, we will present three perspectives related to (1) grassland land use, cutting regimes and agri-environment measures (AEM), (2) post-season pollen transport of an alpine <em>Alnus </em>species, as well as (3) a first climatology of pre-season long-range pollen transport to Bavaria. These selected examples underline the prominent role of land use/land cover (LULC) and pollen transport besides direct temperature mediated climate change effects on flowering for regional pollen calendars.</p>

scholarly journals Land Use Change and Policy in Iowa’s Loess Hills

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaurav Arora ◽  
Peter T. Wolter ◽  
David A. Hennessy ◽  
Hongli Feng
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
State Level ◽  
Crop Productivity ◽  
Loess Hills ◽  
Data Layers

<p class="sar-body"><span lang="EN-US">Land use changes have important implications on ecosystems and society. Detailed identification of the nature of land use changes in any local region is critical for policy design. In this paper, we quantify land use change in Iowa’s Loess Hills ecoregion, which contains much of the state’s remaining prairie grasslands. We employ two distinct panel datasets, the National Resource Inventory data and multi-year Cropland Data Layers, that allow us to characterize spatially-explicit land use change in the region over the period 1982-2010. We analyze land use trends, land use transitions and crop rotations within the ecoregion, and contrast these with county and state-level changes. To better comprehend the underlying land use changes, we evaluate our land use characterizing metrics conditional on soil quality variables such as slope and erodibility. We also consider the role of contemporary agricultural policy and commodity markets to seek explanations for land use changes during the period of our study. Although crop production has expanded on the Loess Hills landform since 2005, much of the expansion in corn acres has been from reduced soybean acreage. We find that out of the total 258 km<sup>2</sup> increase in corn acreage during 2005-’10, about 100 km<sup>2</sup> transitioned from soybeans. Data also indicate intensifying monoculture with higher percentage of corn plantings for two to four consecutive years during 2000-’10. In addition, crop production is found to have moved away from more heavily sloped land. Cropping does not appear to have increased on lands with higher crop productivity.</span></p>

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