2 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
- ItemTeleconnected food supply shocks(Bristol : IOP Publishing, 2016) Bren d'Amour, Christopher; Wenz, Leonie; Kalkuhl, Matthias; Steckel, Jan Christoph; Creutzig, FelixThe 2008–2010 food crisis might have been a harbinger of fundamental climate-induced food crises with geopolitical implications. Heat-wave-induced yield losses in Russia and resulting export restrictions led to increases in market prices for wheat across the Middle East, likely contributing to the Arab Spring. With ongoing climate change, temperatures and temperature variability will rise, leading to higher uncertainty in yields for major nutritional crops. Here we investigate which countries are most vulnerable to teleconnected supply-shocks, i.e. where diets strongly rely on the import of wheat, maize, or rice, and where a large share of the population is living in poverty. We find that the Middle East is most sensitive to teleconnected supply shocks in wheat, Central America to supply shocks in maize, and Western Africa to supply shocks in rice. Weighing with poverty levels, Sub-Saharan Africa is most affected. Altogether, a simultaneous 10% reduction in exports of wheat, rice, and maize would reduce caloric intake of 55 million people living in poverty by about 5%. Export bans in major producing regions would put up to 200 million people below the poverty line at risk, 90% of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our results suggest that a region-specific combination of national increases in agricultural productivity and diversification of trade partners and diets can effectively decrease future food security risks.
- ItemAssessing human and environmental pressures of global land-use change 2000-2010(Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019) Creutzig, Felix; Bren d'Amour, Christopher; Weddige, Ulf; Fuss, Sabine; Beringer, Tim; Gläser, Anne; Kalkuhl, Matthias; Steckel, Jan Christoph; Radebach, Alexander; Edenhofer, OttmarGlobal land is turning into an increasingly scarce resource. We here present a comprehensive assessment of co-occuring land-use change from 2000 until 2010, compiling existing spatially explicit data sources for different land uses, and building on a rich literature addressing specific land-use changes in all world regions. This review systematically categorizes patterns of land use, including regional urbanization and agricultural expansion but also globally telecoupled land-use change for all world regions. Managing land-use change patterns across the globe requires global governance. Here we present a comprehensive assessment of the extent and density of multiple drivers and impacts of land-use change. We combine and reanalyze spatially explicit data of global land-use change between 2000 and 2010 for population, livestock, cropland, terrestrial carbon and biodiversity. We find pervasive pressure on biodiversity but varying patterns of gross land-use changes across world regions. Our findings enable a classification of land-use patterns into three types. The 'consumers' type, displayed in Europe and North America, features high land footprints, reduced direct human pressures due to intensification of agriculture, and increased reliance on imports, enabling a partial recovery of terrestrial carbon and reducing pressure on biodiversity. In the 'producer' type, most clearly epitomized by Latin America, telecoupled land-use links drive biodiversity and carbon loss. In the 'mover' type, we find strong direct domestic pressures, but with a wide variety of outcomes, ranging from a concurrent expansion of population, livestock and croplands in Sub-Saharan Africa at the cost of natural habitats to strong pressure on cropland by urbanization in Eastern Asia. In addition, anthropogenic climate change has already left a distinct footprint on global land-use change. Our data- and literature-based assessment reveals region-specific opportunities for managing global land-use change. © 2019 The Author(s).