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- ItemClimate change and potential distribution of potato (Solanum tuberosum) crop cultivation in Pakistan using Maxent(Springfield, MO : AIMS Press, 2021) Khalil, Tayyaba; Asad, Saeed A.; Khubaib, Nusaiba; Baig, Ayesha; Atif, Salman; Umar, Muhammad; Kropp, Jürgen P.; Pradhan, Prajal; Baig, SofiaThe impacts of climate change are projected to become more intense and frequent. One of the indirect impacts of climate change is food insecurity. Agriculture in Pakistan, measured fourth best in the world, is already experiencing visible adverse impacts of climate change. Among many other food sources, potato crop remains one of the food security crops for developing nations. Potatoes are widely cultivated in Pakistan. To assess the impact of climate change on potato crop in Pakistan, it is imperative to analyze its distribution under future climate change scenarios using Species Distribution Models (SDMs). Maximum Entropy Model is used in this study to predict the spatial distribution of Potato in 2070 using two CMIP5 models for two climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). 19 Bioclimatic variables are incorporated along with other contributing variables like soil type, elevation and irrigation. The results indicate slight decrease in the suitable area for potato growth in RCP 4.5 and drastic decrease in suitable area in RCP 8.5 for both models. The performance evaluation of the model is based on AUC. AUC value of 0.85 suggests the fitness of the model and thus, it is applicable to predict the suitable climate for potato production in Pakistan. Sustainable potato cultivation is needed to increase productivity in developing countries while promoting better resource management and optimization.
- ItemCharacterizing the sectoral development of cities(San Francisco, California, US : PLOS, 2021) Rybski, Diego; Pradhan, Prajal; Shutters, Shade T.; Butsic, Van; Kropp, Jürgen P.; Xue, BingPrevious research has identified a predictive model of how a nation’s distribution of gross domestic product (GDP) among agriculture (a), industry (i), and services (s) changes as a country develops. Here we use this national model to analyze the composition of GDP for US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) over time. To characterize the transfer of GDP shares between the sectors in the course of economic development we explore a simple system of differential equations proposed in the country-level model. Fitting the model to more than 120 MSAs we find that according to the obtained parameters MSAs can be classified into 6 groups (consecutive, high industry, re-industrializing; each of them also with reversed development direction). The consecutive transfer (a → i → s) is common but does not represent all MSAs examined. At the 95% confidence level, 40% of MSAs belong to types exhibiting an increasing share of GDP from agriculture. In California, such MSAs, which we classify as part of an agriculture renaissance, are found in the Central Valley.
- ItemSustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Are we successful in turning trade-offs into synergies?(Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) Kroll, Christian; Warchold, Anne; Pradhan, PrajalThe Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides the framework that all United Nations (UN) member states have pledged to fulfill. The achievement of this agenda crucially depends on whether humankind will be able to maximize synergies and resolve existing trade-offs between the SDGs. We provide the first analysis of future interactions for projected SDG trends until 2030 within and between goals, and we analyze how trade-offs and synergies have evolved in the recent past globally. For certain goals, we find positive developments with notable synergies in our projections, especially for SDGs 1, 3, 7, 8, and 9: Poverty alleviation and strengthening the economy, rooted in innovation, and modern infrastructure, therefore continue to be the basis upon which many of the other SDGs can be achieved. However, especially SDGs 11, 13, 14, 16, and 17 will continue to have notable trade-offs, as well as non-associations with the other goals in the future, which emphasizes the need to foster innovations and policies that can make our cities and communities more sustainable, as well as strengthen institutions and spur climate action. We show examples of a successful transformation of trade-offs into synergies that should be emulated in other areas to create a virtuous cycle of SDG progress. The alarming inability to overcome certain persistent trade-offs we have found, and indeed the deterioration for some SDGs, can seriously threaten the achievement of the Agenda 2030.
- ItemFood Surplus and Its Climate Burdens(Columbus, Ohio : American Chemical Society, 2016) Hiç, Ceren; Pradhan, Prajal; Rybski, Diego; Kropp, Jürgen P.Avoiding food loss and waste may counteract the increasing food demand and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agricultural sector. This is crucial because of limited options available to increase food production. In the year 2010, food availability was 20% higher than was required on a global scale. Thus, a more sustainable food production and adjusted consumption would have positive environmental effects. This study provides a systematic approach to estimate consumer level food waste on a country scale and globally, based on food availability and requirements. The food requirement estimation considers demographic development, body weights, and physical activity levels. Surplus between food availability and requirements of a given country is considered as food waste. The global food requirement changed from 2,300 kcal/cap/day to 2,400 kcal/cap/day during the last 50 years, while food surplus grew from 310 kcal/cap/day to 510 kcal/cap/day. Similarly, GHG emissions related to the food surplus increased from 130 Mt CO2eq/yr to 530 Mt CO2eq/yr, an increase of more than 300%. Moreover, the global food surplus may increase up to 850 kcal/cap/day, while the total food requirement will increase only by 2%–20% by 2050. Consequently, GHG emissions associated with the food waste may also increase tremendously to 1.9–2.5 Gt CO2eq/yr.
- ItemThe COVID‐19 Pandemic Not Only Poses Challenges, but Also Opens Opportunities for Sustainable Transformation(Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2021) Pradhan, Prajal; Subedi, Daya Raj; Khatiwada, Dilip; Joshi, Kirti Kusum; Kafle, Sagar; Chhetri, Raju Pandit; Dhakal, Shobhakar; Gautam, Ambika Prasad; Khatiwada, Padma Prasad; Mainaly, Jony; Onta, Sharad; Pandey, Vishnu Prasad; Parajuly, Keshav; Pokharel, Sijal; Satyal, Poshendra; Singh, Devendra Raj; Talchabhadel, Rocky; Tha, Rupesh; Thapa, Bhesh Raj; Adhikari, Kamal; Adhikari, Shankar; Chandra Bastakoti, Ram; Bhandari, Pitambar; Bharati, Saraswoti; Bhusal, Yub Raj; Bahadur BK, Man; Bogati, Ramji; Kafle, Simrin; Khadka, Manohara; Khatiwada, Nawa Raj; Lal, Ajay Chandra; Neupane, Dinesh; Neupane, Kaustuv Raj; Ojha, Rajit; Regmi, Narayan Prasad; Rupakheti, Maheswar; Sapkota, Alka; Sapkota, Rupak; Sharma, Mahashram; Shrestha, Gitta; Shrestha, Indira; Shrestha, Khadga Bahadur; Tandukar, Sarmila; Upadhyaya, Shyam; Kropp, Jürgen P.; Bhuju, Dinesh RajThe COVID-19 pandemic has impacted social, economic, and environmental systems worldwide, slowing down and reversing the progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs belong to the 2030 Agenda to transform our world by tackling humankind's challenges to ensure well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection. We explore the potential impacts of the pandemic on SDGs for Nepal. We followed a knowledge co-creation process with experts from various professional backgrounds, involving five steps: online survey, online workshop, assessment of expert's opinions, review and validation, and revision and synthesis. The pandemic has negatively impacted most SDGs in the short term. Particularly, the targets of SDG 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13 have and will continue to have weakly to moderately restricting impacts. However, a few targets of SDG 2, 3, 6, and 11 could also have weakly promoting impacts. The negative impacts have resulted from impeding factors linked to the pandemic. Many of the negative impacts may subside in the medium and long terms. The key five impeding factors are lockdowns, underemployment and unemployment, closure of institutions and facilities, diluted focus and funds for non-COVID-19-related issues, and anticipated reduction in support from development partners. The pandemic has also opened a window of opportunity for sustainable transformation, which is short-lived and narrow. These opportunities are lessons learned for planning and action, socio-economic recovery plan, use of information and communication technologies and the digital economy, reverse migration and “brain gain,” and local governments' exercising authorities.
- ItemHungry cities: how local food self-sufficiency relates to climate change, diets, and urbanisation(Bristol : IOP Publ., 2019) Kriewald, Steffen; Pradhan, Prajal; Costa, Luis; Ros, Anselmo García Cantú; Kropp, Juergen P.Using a newly developed model approach and combining it with remote sensing, population, and climate data, first insights are provided into how local diets, urbanisation, and climate change relates to local urban food self-sufficiency. In plain terms, by utilizing the global peri-urban (PU) food production potential approximately 1bn urban residents (30% of global urban population) can be locally nourished, whereby further urbanisation is by far the largest pressure factor on PU agriculture, followed by a change of diets, and climate change. A simple global food transport model which optimizes transport and neglects differences in local emission intensities indicates that CO2 emissions related to food transport can be reduced by a factor of 10.
- ItemReducing deforestation and improving livestock productivity: greenhouse gas mitigation potential of silvopastoral systems in Caquetá(Bristol : IOP Publ., 2019) Landholm, David M.; Pradhan, Prajal; Wegmann, Peter; Sánchez, Miguel A. Romero; Salazar, Juan Carlos Suárez; Kropp, Juergen P.Colombia's agriculture, forestry and other land use sector accounts for nearly half of its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The importance of smallholder deforestation is comparatively high in relation to its regional counterparts, and livestock agriculture represents the largest driver of primary forest depletion. Silvopastoral systems (SPSs) are presented as agroecological solutions that synergistically enhance livestock productivity, improve local farmers' livelihoods and hold the potential to reduce pressure on forest conversion. The department of Caquetá represents Colombia's most important deforestation hotspot. Targeting smallholder livestock farms through survey data, in this work we investigate the GHG mitigation potential of implementing SPSs for smallholder farms in this region. Specifically, we assess whether the carbon sequestration taking place in the soil and biomass of SPSs is sufficient to offset the per-hectare increase in livestock GHG emissions resulting from higher stocking rates. To address these questions we use data on livestock population characteristics and historic land cover changes reported from a survey covering 158 farms and model the carbon sequestration occurring in three different scenarios of progressively-increased SPS complexity using the CO2 fix model. We find that, even with moderate tree planting densities, the implementation of SPSs can reduce GHG emissions by 2.6 Mg CO2e ha−1 yr−1 in relation to current practices, while increasing agriculture productivity and contributing to the restoration of severely degraded landscapes.
- ItemVariations in sustainable development goal interactions: Population, regional, and income disaggregation(New York, NY [u.a.] : Wiley, 2020) Warchold, Anne; Pradhan, Prajal; Kropp, Jürgen P.To fulfill the 2030 Agenda, the complexity of sustainable development goal (SDG) interactions needs to be disentangled. However, this understanding is currently limited. We conduct a cross-sectional correlational analysis for 2016 to understand SDG interactions under the entire development spectrum. We apply several correlation methods to classify the interaction as synergy or trade-off and characterize them according to their monotony and linearity. Simultaneously, we analyze SDG interactions considering population, location, income, and regional groups. Our findings highlight that synergies always outweigh trade-offs and linear outweigh non-linear interactions. SDG 1, 5, and 6 are associated with linear synergies, SDG 3, and 7 with non-linear synergies. SDG interactions vary according to a country's income and region along with the gender, age, and location of its population. In summary, to achieve the 2030 Agenda the detected interactions and inequalities across countries need be tracked and leveraged to “leave no one behind.”
- ItemInterplay between Diets, Health, and Climate Change(Basel : MDPI, 2020) Pradhan, Prajal; Kropp, Jürgen P.The world is facing a triple burden of undernourishment, obesity, and environmental impacts from agriculture while nourishing its population. This burden makes sustainable nourishment of the growing population a global challenge. Addressing this challenge requires an understanding of the interplay between diets, health, and associated environmental impacts (e.g., climate change). For this, we identify 11 typical diets that represent dietary habits worldwide for the last five decades. Plant-source foods provide most of all three macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) in developing countries. In contrast, animal-source foods provide a majority of protein and fat in developed ones. The identified diets deviate from the recommended healthy diet with either too much (e.g., red meat) or too little (e.g., fruits and vegetables) food and nutrition supply. The total calorie supplies are lower than required for two diets. Sugar consumption is higher than recommended for five diets. Three and five diets consist of larger-than-recommended carbohydrate and fat shares, respectively. Four diets with a large share of animal-source foods exceed the recommended value of red meat. Only two diets consist of at least 400 gm/cap/day of fruits and vegetables while accounting for food waste. Prevalence of undernourishment and underweight dominates in the diets with lower calories. In comparison, a higher prevalence of obesity is observed for diets with higher calories with high shares of sugar, fat, and animal-source foods. However, embodied emissions in the diets do not show a clear relation with calorie supplies and compositions. Two high-calorie diets embody more than 1.5 t CO 2 eq/cap/yr, and two low-calorie diets embody around 1 t CO 2 eq/cap/yr. Our analysis highlights that sustainable and healthy diets can serve the purposes of both nourishing the population and, at the same time, reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.
- ItemArticulating the effect of food systems innovation on the Sustainable Development Goals(Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2021) Herrero, Mario; Thornton, Philip K.; Mason-D'Croz, Daniel; Palmer, Jeda; Bodirsky, Benjamin L.; Pradhan, Prajal; Barrett, Christopher B.; Benton, Tim G.; Hall, Andrew; Pikaar, Ilje; Bogard, Jessica R.; Bonnett, Graham D.; Bryan, Brett A.; Campbell, Bruce M.; Christensen, Svend; Clark, Michael; Fanzo, Jessica; Godde, Cecile M.; Jarvis, Andy; Loboguerrero, Ana Maria; Mathys, Alexander; McIntyre, C. Lynne; Naylor, Rosamond L.; Nelson, Rebecca; Obersteiner, Michael; Parodi, Alejandro; Popp, Alexander; Ricketts, Katie; Smith, Pete; Valin, Hugo; Vermeulen, Sonja J.; Vervoort, Joost; van Wijk, Mark; van Zanten, Hannah HE; West, Paul C.; Wood, Stephen A.; Rockström, JohanFood system innovations will be instrumental to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, major innovation breakthroughs can trigger profound and disruptive changes, leading to simultaneous and interlinked reconfigurations of multiple parts of the global food system. The emergence of new technologies or social solutions, therefore, have very different impact profiles, with favourable consequences for some SDGs and unintended adverse side-effects for others. Stand-alone innovations seldom achieve positive outcomes over multiple sustainability dimensions. Instead, they should be embedded as part of systemic changes that facilitate the implementation of the SDGs. Emerging trade-offs need to be intentionally addressed to achieve true sustainability, particularly those involving social aspects like inequality in its many forms, social justice, and strong institutions, which remain challenging. Trade-offs with undesirable consequences are manageable through the development of well planned transition pathways, careful monitoring of key indicators, and through the implementation of transparent science targets at the local level.