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A protocol for an intercomparison of biodiversity and ecosystem services models using harmonized land-use and climate scenarios
2018, Kim, HyeJin, Rosa, Isabel M. D., Alkemade, Rob, Leadley, Paul, Hurtt, George, Popp, Alexander, van Vuuren, Detlef P., Anthoni, Peter, Arneth, Almut, Baisero, Daniele, Caton, Emma, Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca, Chini, Louise, De Palma, Adriana, Di Fulvio, Fulvio, Di Marco, Moreno, Espinoza, Felipe, Ferrier, Simon, Fujimori, Shinichiro, Gonzalez, Ricardo E., Gueguen, Maya, Guerra, Carlos, Harfoot, Mike, Harwood, Thomas D., Hasegawa, Tomoko, Haverd, Vanessa, Havlík, Petr, Hellweg, Stefanie, Hill, Samantha L. L., Hirata, Akiko, Hoskins, Andrew J., Janse, Jan H., Jetz, Walter, Johnson, Justin A., Krause, Andreas, Leclère, David, Martins, Ines S., Matsui, Tetsuya, Merow, Cory, Obersteiner, Michael, Ohashi, Haruka, Poulter, Benjamin, Purvis, Andy, Quesada, Benjamin, Rondinini, Carlo, Schipper, Aafke M., Sharp, Richard, Takahashi, Kiyoshi, Thuiller, Wilfried, Titeux, Nicolas, Visconti, Piero, Ware, Christopher, Wolf, Florian, Pereira, Henrique M.
To support the assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the IPBES Expert Group on Scenarios and Models is carrying out an intercomparison of biodiversity and ecosystem services models using harmonized scenarios (BES-SIM). The goals of BES-SIM are (1) to project the global impacts of land-use and climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services (i.e., nature's contributions to people) over the coming decades, compared to the 20th century, using a set of common metrics at multiple scales, and (2) to identify model uncertainties and research gaps through the comparisons of projected biodiversity and ecosystem services across models. BES-SIM uses three scenarios combining specific Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)-SSP1xRCP2.6, SSP3xRCP6.0, SSP5xRCP8.6-to explore a wide range of land-use change and climate change futures. This paper describes the rationale for scenario selection, the process of harmonizing input data for land use, based on the second phase of the Land Use Harmonization Project (LUH2), and climate, the biodiversity and ecosystem services models used, the core simulations carried out, the harmonization of the model output metrics, and the treatment of uncertainty. The results of this collaborative modeling project will support the ongoing global assessment of IPBES, strengthen ties between IPBES and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios and modeling processes, advise the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on its development of a post-2020 strategic plans and conservation goals, and inform the development of a new generation of nature-centred scenarios.
Water Use in Global Livestock Production—Opportunities and Constraints for Increasing Water Productivity
2020, Heinke, Jens, Lannerstad, Mats, Gerten, Dieter, Havlík, Petr, Herrero, Mario, Notenbaert, An Maria Omer, Hoff, Holger, Müller, Christoph
Increasing population, change in consumption habits, and climate change will likely increase the competition for freshwater resources in the future. Exploring ways to improve water productivity especially in food and livestock systems is important for tackling the future water challenge. Here we combine detailed data on feed use and livestock production with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) statistics and process-based crop-water model simulations to comprehensively assess water use and water productivity in the global livestock sector. We estimate that, annually, 4,387 km3 of blue and green water is used for the production of livestock feed, equaling about 41% of total agricultural water use. Livestock water productivity (LWP; protein produced per m3 of water) differs by several orders of magnitude between livestock types, regions, and production systems, indicating a large potential for improvements. For pigs and broilers, we identify large opportunities to increase LWP by increasing both feed water productivity (FWP; feed produced per m3 of water) and feed use efficiency (FUE; protein produced per kg of feed) through better crop and livestock management. Even larger opportunities to increase FUE exist for ruminants, while the overall potential to increase their FWP is low. Substantial improvements of FUE can be achieved for ruminants by supplementation with feed crops, but the lower FWP of these feed crops compared to grazed biomass limits possible overall improvements of LWP. Therefore, LWP of ruminants, unlike for pigs and poultry, does not always benefit from a trend toward intensification, as this is often accompanied by increasing crop supplementation.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture without compromising food security?
2017, Frank, Stefan, Havlík, Petr, Soussana, Jean-François, Levesque, Antoine, Wollenberg, Eva, Kleinwechter, Ulrich, Fricko, Oliver, Gusti, Mykola, Herrero, Mario, Smith, Pete, Hasegawa, Tomoko, Kraxner, Florian, Obersteiner, Michael
To keep global warming possibly below 1.5 °C and mitigate adverse effects of climate change, agriculture, like all other sectors, will have to contribute to efforts in achieving net negative emissions by the end of the century. Cost-efficient distribution of mitigation across regions and economic sectors is typically calculated using a global uniform carbon price in climate stabilization scenarios. However, in reality such a carbon price would substantially affect food availability. Here, we assess the implications of climate change mitigation in the land use sector for agricultural production and food security using an integrated partial equilibrium modelling framework and explore ways of relaxing the competition between mitigation in agriculture and food availability. Using a scenario that limits global warming cost-efficiently across sectors to 1.5 °C, results indicate global food calorie losses ranging from 110–285 kcal per capita per day in 2050 depending on the applied demand elasticities. This could translate into a rise in undernourishment of 80–300 million people in 2050. Less ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in the land use sector reduces the associated food security impact significantly, however the 1.5 °C target would not be achieved without additional reductions outside the land use sector. Efficiency of GHG mitigation will also depend on the level of participation globally. Our results show that if non-Annex-I countries decide not to contribute to mitigation action while other parties pursue their mitigation efforts to reach the global climate target, food security impacts in these non-Annex-I countries will be higher than if they participate in a global agreement, as inefficient mitigation increases agricultural production costs and therefore food prices. Land-rich countries with a high proportion of emissions from land use change, such as Brazil, could reduce emissions with only a marginal effect on food availability. In contrast, agricultural mitigation in high population (density) countries, such as China and India, would lead to substantial food calorie loss without a major contribution to global GHG mitigation. Increasing soil carbon sequestration on agricultural land would allow reducing the implied calorie loss by 65% when sticking to the initially estimated land use mitigation requirements, thereby limiting the impact on undernourishment to 20–75 million people, and storing significant amounts of carbon in soils.
Livestock in a changing climate: Production system transitions as an adaptation strategy for agriculture
2015, Weindl, Isabelle, Lotze-Campen, Hermann, Popp, Alexander, Müller, Christoph, Havlík, Petr, Herrero, Mario, Schmitz, Christoph, Rolinski, Susanne
Livestock farming is the world's largest land use sector and utilizes around 60% of the global biomass harvest. Over the coming decades, climate change will affect the natural resource base of livestock production, especially the productivity of rangeland and feed crops. Based on a comprehensive impact modeling chain, we assess implications of different climate projections for agricultural production costs and land use change and explore the effectiveness of livestock system transitions as an adaptation strategy. Simulated climate impacts on crop yields and rangeland productivity generate adaptation costs amounting to 3% of total agricultural production costs in 2045 (i.e. 145 billion US$). Shifts in livestock production towards mixed crop-livestock systems represent a resource- and cost-efficient adaptation option, reducing agricultural adaptation costs to 0.3% of total production costs and simultaneously abating deforestation by about 76 million ha globally. The relatively positive climate impacts on grass yields compared with crop yields favor grazing systems inter alia in South Asia and North America. Incomplete transitions in production systems already have a strong adaptive and cost reducing effect: a 50% shift to mixed systems lowers agricultural adaptation costs to 0.8%. General responses of production costs to system transitions are robust across different global climate and crop models as well as regarding assumptions on CO2 fertilization, but simulated values show a large variation. In the face of these uncertainties, public policy support for transforming livestock production systems provides an important lever to improve agricultural resource management and lower adaptation costs, possibly even contributing to emission reduction.