Future Land Use Change Scenarios Research Articles

Projection of further expansion of oil palm plantation in Jambi Province

The expansion of oil palm plantations has become of global concern. Jambi province in Indonesia is one of the regions experiencing a rapid shift in land use, and oil palm plantation, settlement, and agriculture has emerged as the primary force behind this shift. This study aims to project scenarios of future land-use change and expansion of oil palm plantation in Jambi Province in 2030, 2060, and 2100. Projections of land-use change scenarios are conducted using the Land Change Modeler (LCM) in which Cellular Automata Markov (CA-Markov) is the model base. The validation of model against historic land-use changes showed an overall kappa value of 0.97. In the no-conservation scenario assuming a continuation of the trends from 1990 to 2011, the forest area is continuing to decrease. . Oil palm would replace forest as dominant land-use cover in Jambi Province in 2100. Driving factors explaining the spatial distribution of oil palm plantation expansion include distance from forest, distance from road, and elevation. Our study shows the importance of government regulations to to slow or stop deforestation especially for forests near plantations.

Evaluación del servicio ecosistémico de regulación hídrica ante escenarios de conservación de vegetación nativa y expansión de plantaciones forestales en el centro-sur de Chile

Land use change (LUC) is one of the most conditioning biophysical factors in the hydric regulation although the magnitude of its effects has been little studied. The objective was to analyze the changes in the magnitude of the ecosystem service of water regulation under future scenarios of LUC at watershed scale, taking as case study the municipality of Panguipulli (Los Rios Region, Southern Chile). The methodology was based on the Curve Number method applied through the ECOSER mapping protocol, which estimates the ability to regulate rainfall considering the type of vegetation and the physical characteristics of the soil. Modeling results showed that under a scenario A of increased old-growth forest cover (64 %), watersheds increase their capacity to regulate between 0.4 % and 7.1 %, while in a scenario of increased industrial forest (88 %), watersheds reduced their capacity to regulate between 0.3 % and 0.9 %, considering a single precipitation event in 24 hours. The watersheds with the largest increase in regulation capacity ( x = 11.8 m3 ha-1) had a low initial area of native forest ( x = 15 %), a large area of soil type A and B (40 %) and a smaller area of soil types C and D (21 %). The basins with the largest reduction in regulation capacity ( x = 4.4 m3 ha-1) exhibited a low area of plantations ( x = 5 %), a low area of soil type A and B (32 %) and higher area of soil type C and D (45 %). This information supports the need to focus land use planning efforts on watersheds most exposed to the expansion of plantations.

Future Land-Use Changes and the Potential for Novelty in Ecosystems of the United States

Rapid global changes due to changing land use, climate, and non-native species are altering environmental conditions, resulting in more novel communities with unprecedented species combinations. Understanding how future anthropogenic changes may affect novelty in ecosystems is important to advance environmental management and ecological research in the Anthropocene. The main goal of this study was to understand how alternative scenarios of future land-use change may affect novelty in ecosystems throughout the conterminous United States. We used five spatially explicit scenarios of future land-use changes, reflecting different land-use policies and changes in agricultural markets, to quantify and map potential drivers of novelty. Our results showed large areas where future land-use changes may increase novelty in ecosystems. The major land-use changes known to increase novelty, including land abandonment and land-use expansion, were widespread in all scenarios (73 million to 95 million ha), especially in the eastern U.S. and along the West Coast. Our scenarios revealed that, at broad scales, future land-use changes will increase novelty in ecosystems, and that traditional conservation policies may have limited ability to prevent the process. In places such as the eastern U.S., conserving and maintaining historical conditions and associated biological diversity may become increasingly difficult due to future land-use changes and related ecological factors. Successful biodiversity conservation and environmental management in the Anthropocene will require novel conservation approaches to be relevant in areas with high levels of novelty in ecosystems.

Modelling phosphorus dynamics in multi-branch river systems: A study of the Black River, Lake Simcoe, Ontario, Canada

High rates of nutrient loading from agricultural and urban development have resulted in surface water eutrophication and groundwater contamination in regions of Ontario. In Lake Simcoe (Ontario, Canada), anthropogenic nutrient contributions have contributed to increased algal growth, low hypolimnetic oxygen concentrations, and impaired fish reproduction. An ambitious programme has been initiated to reduce phosphorus loads to the lake, aiming to achieve at least a 40% reduction in phosphorus loads by 2045. Achievement of this target necessitates effective remediation strategies, which will rely upon an improved understanding of controls on nutrient export from tributaries of Lake Simcoe as well as improved understanding of the importance of phosphorus cycling within the lake. In this paper, we describe a new model structure for the integrated dynamic and process-based model INCA-P, which allows fully-distributed applications, suited to branched river networks. We demonstrate application of this model to the Black River, a tributary of Lake Simcoe, and use INCA-P to simulate the fluxes of P entering the lake system, apportion phosphorus among different sources in the catchment, and explore future scenarios of land-use change and nutrient management to identify high priority sites for implementation of watershed best management practises.

Combining two approaches of integrated scenario development to combat desertification in the Guadalentín watershed, Spain

Desertification in Spain is a largely society-driven process, which can be managed effectively only through an understanding of environmental, sociocultural, and economic driving forces. This calls for a more active role of decision makers and other stakeholders. We present two promising approachesparticipatory stakeholder workshops and a spatial policy support system (PoSS)ˆto develop future scenarios of land-use change for a watershed in Spain. We furthermore discuss the efforts involved and the added values of combining both methods. Based on two local workshops, three scenarios were constructed, which were subsequently formalised, parameterised, and quantified. We conclude that there are large advantages of linking narrative storylines and a spatial PoSS. Storylines ensure an active participation of a large range of stakeholders, additionally offering the possibility to develop highly integrated scenarios. The PoSS provides a spatially detailed and quanti- tative output, that can also be used to check the internal consistency of the qualitative scenarios. Linking stories and models can thus open the way for more successful management strategies to combat land degradation.