N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L H U M A N D I M E N S I O N S P R O G R A M M E O N G L O B A L E N V I R O N M E N T A L C H A N G EUPDATEIH
DP
03/2005
W W W . I H D P . O R GI H D P U p d a t e i s p u b l i s h e d b y t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l H u m a n D i m e n s i o n s P r o g r a m m e o n G l o b a l E n v i r o m e n t a l C h a n g e ( I H D P ) , Wa l t e r - F l e x - S t r. 3 , 5 3 1 1 3 B o n n , G e r m a n y, V. i . S . d . P. : U l a L ö w
1 Land-Use and Land-Cover Change:Developing and Implementing anAgenda for Local Processes withGlobal Impacts | E. Lambin, H. Geist,R. R. Rindfuss
4 Global Changes in Land Cover | N. Ramankutty et. al.
6 Causes, Trajectories and Syndromesof Land-Use/Cover Change | H. Geist,E. Lambin, W. McConnell, D. Alves
8 Pixels or Agents? Modelling Land-Use and Land-Cover Change | P. Verburg, K. Kok, T. Veldkamp
10 Global Land Scenarios: The Searchfor the Future of Land | J. Alcamo,G. Busch
12 Multiple Impacts of Land-Use/Cover Change | A. Chhabra,H. Haberl, A. Braimoh
13 Linking Land-Use/Cover Change Science and Policy | R. S. Reid,X. Jianchu, H. Geist
14 Frontier in Land-Use/Cover ChangeResearch | The LUCC Scientific Steering Committee
16 List of Authors
17 GECHS and LOICZ:Meeting Reports
18 In Brief, Publications
19 Meeting Calendar, Publications
C O N T E N T S
� Following preparatory work in the early 1990s, the Land-Use/Cover Change (LUCC)project was created to develop a research agenda for one of the primary drivers of glob-
al change. It was organized as an interdisciplinary joint core project of the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions
Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), formalized in 1995 through the
publication of its science/research plan (Turner et al., 1995) and reaching the stage of
full implementation four years later (Lambin et al., 1999). From its beginning, the proj-
ect was unique because it integrated social and biophysical science. After a decade of
operation, the LUCC project will phase out in October 2005. Here we introduce this
special issue with its seven articles, and provide thoughts on the LUCC project.
The three missions of the LUCC project had been to build a compendium of infor-
mation about local land-use and land-cover dynamics, to identify a small number of
robust principles that can better knit together local insights into a predictive science,
� continued on page 2
LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER CHANGE: DEVEL-
OPING AND IMPLEMENTING AN AGENDA FOR
LOCAL PROCESSES WITH GLOBAL IMPACTS
BY ERIC LAMBIN, HELMUT GEIST AND RONALD R. RINDFUSS
Gra
ph
ics
by
Josh
Tay
lor
ISSN 1727-155X
FO CUS:
LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER CHANGE
2 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
In a second period, following completion of the implemen-
tation strategy in 1999, major headway was made towards syn-
thesizing methodologies and generating results on land-
use/cover change for various classes of land change such as trop-
ical deforestation, desertification, agricultural intensification,
and urbanization (see figure). This was primarily achieved
through a series of synthesis workshops and conferences. The
support infrastructure and dialogue with funding agencies in
the Americas, Europe and Asia continued to be maintained.
In the final phase of the LUCC project, starting around
2003, the concept of land-use transition was discussed within
the scientific steering committee and implications were drawn
for a transition towards sustainable land use. Also in this final
phase, efforts have been concentrated on the creation of a syn-
thesis book, which is nearing completion and the contents of
which are reflected in the following seven articles.
From the beginning, researchers from multiple disciplines
spanning the physical, spatial and social sciences have been
involved in LUCC. These researchers brought with them the
methods and theories of the disciplines in which they were
trained. Much of the early work on integration across studies
involved either data and methodological issues or substantive
empirical results. The empirical work, especially the case stud-
ies, was guided by multiple theories, with the specific mix pri-
marily determined by the disciplinary origins of the investiga-
tors on the team.
What has not yet emerged is an overarching theory that
incorporates the insights from multiple social and natural sci-
ences, and that explains change in the behavior of people as
well as land cover/use change. We believe the time is ripe for
one or more such overarching theories to be developed. There
is evidence that a land change science is emerging, building on
the foundations constructed by LUCC. We are seeing a steady
increase in conferences devoted to land change, journal arti-
cles reporting land change science results, and funding avail-
able to pursue land change science. Emerging sciences need
their own theories. Empirical research has started to pro-
duce a number of stylized facts that can serve as grist
for more general theorizing. Moreover, the practical
issues to which land change science has been
responding (e.g., climate change and biodiversity
loss) demand more comprehensive theories so that we
can better understand the past and predict the future.
While we are not ready to propose an overarching theory of
land change, we are in a position to understand some issues
that such a theory must address. First, an overarching land
change theory needs to engage both the behavior of people
and the uses to which land units are put, as well as feedbacks
from one to the other. Second, an overarching theory of land
change needs to be multi-level with respect to both people and
pixels, recognizing that they can combine in ways that affects
their collective and individual behaviors. Third, an overarch-
ing theory of land change would need to incorporate the
extent to which people, pixels and ecosystems are connected to
the broader world in which they exist. Fourth, an overarching
theory of land use will need to incorporate time, both past
time (history) and the future.
LUCC has produced numerous insights on rates, causes,
patterns, impacts, and future scenarios of land-use/-cover
and to foster the development of common models which may
then become widely available to scientists and stakeholders. To
implement the project’s science/research plan, six major
research themes were set up (box). The time frame for the sci-
ence questions was the past 300 years as well as the next 100.
For most regions of the world, this time frame corresponds to
the most rapid land cover transformations.
Three foci – land-use change, land-cover dynamics, and
modelling – were identified. They served as interlocking
strategies requiring a combination of perspectives. The follow-
ing article by Navin Ramankutty et al. features the major out-
comes in the field of land-cover dynamics (mainly addressing
science question no. 1). The article by Geist et al. presents find-
ings on the causes and pathways of land change (science ques-
tion no. 2), and the articles by Peter Verburg et al. (model-
ling) and Joseph Alcamo et al. (scenarios) address sci-
ence question no. 3. The remaining science questions
are at least partly dealt with in the articles by Abha
Chhabra et al. (on multiple impacts) and by Reid et al.
(on linking land change science and policy). The final
article summarizes recent thinking of the scientic steering
committee, providing an outlook on the research frontier,
which includes the heritage that is handed over from LUCC to
the new Global Land Project.
Historically, three major periods of LUCC can be distin-
guished. In the first (1995–1998), major efforts were undertak-
en to establish the foundations of LUCC, moving towards full
implementation. This was primarily achieved through the
establishment of basic support infrastructure, i.e., scientific
steering committee, international project office, foci offices,
endorsed projects, and regional networks. This was further
accomplished through catalytic development of land-
use/cover change science by associated groups such as the
Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program of the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and
the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change, both established in 1996.
Box: Science questions of the Land-Use/CoverChange (LUCC) project
(1) How has land cover been changed by human use
over the last 300 years?
(2) What are the major human causes of land-cover
change in different geographical and historical
contexts?
(3) How will changes in land use affect land cover in
the next 50–100 years?
(4) How do human and biophysical dynamics affect
the coupled human-environment system?
(5) How might changes in climate (variability) and
biogeochemistry affects both land use and land
cover, and vice versa?
(6) How do land uses and land covers affect the vul-
nerability of the coupled human-environment
system?
I N T R O D U C T I O N A N D E D I T O R I A L
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 3
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
change at multiple scales. Now, we believe it is a good time for
LUCC to end and the new IGBP/IHDP Global Land Project to
begin.
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/ updatelucc05/references.htm
ERIC LAMBIN, Chair of the LUCC Scientic Steering Commit-
tee, and HELMUT GEIST, Executive Director of LUCC, are
Guest Editors of this UPDATE.
Please note that all authors of the LUCC articles will be fea-tured on page 16.
I N T R O D U C T I O N A N D E D I T O R I A L
� The IHDP UPDATE newsletter features the activities of
the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global
Environmental Change and its research community.
ISSN 1727-155X
UPDATE is published by the
IHDP Secretariat
Walter-Flex-Strasse 3
53113 Bonn, Germany.
EDITOR: Ula Löw, IHDP; [email protected]
LAYOUT AND PRINT: Köllen Druck+Verlag GmbH, Bonn+Berlin,
Germany
UPDATE is published four times per year. Sections of UPDATE may
be reproduced with acknowledgement to IHDP. Please send a
copy of any reproduced material to the IHDP Secretariat.
This newsletter is produced using funds by the German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the United
States National Science Foundation (NSF).
The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily
represent the position of IHDP or its sponsoring organizations
Figure: Case study comparison as a tool to synthesizegeneralized information. Sources: Brookfield, Harold
Chilingworth 1962. Local study and comparativemethod: An example from central New Guinea. Annals
of the Association of American Geographers 52: 242-252. Turner, B.L. II/Hanham, Robert Q. & Anthony V.Portararo (1977): Population pressure and agricultur-al intensity. – Annals of the Association of American
Geographers. Vol. 67 (3), S. 384-396.
International Organizationsand Global EnvironmentalGovernance
Berlin Conference on the Human
Dimensions of GlobalEnvironmental Change
2-3 December 2005endorsed by IHDP core projects IDGEC and IT
Global EnvironmentalChange: Regional ChallengesAn Earth System Science PartnershipGlobal Environmental ChangeOpen Science Conference
Beijing, China · 9-12 November 2006
Proposals for sessions may be submitted online October – November 2005 at www.essp.org/ESSP2006
Abstracts for presentations and posters may be submitted online February – May 2006
2nd International Young Scientists’Global Change Conference7-8 November 2006 · Beijing, China
Call for Papers –Young scientists (age35 years or less) areinvited to submitpapers and posters on physical, biological andhuman aspects of global change. Please finddetailed instructions for applications on theSTART website: www.start.org
4 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
1. INTRODUCTION
� Human activities have transformed our planet’s land-scape for a long time, initially through the control of fire, and
later through the domestication of plants and animals. More
recently, using fossil fuels, humans have significantly increased
the pace, extent, and intensity of land-use change. Today,
roughly a third of the world’s landscapes are being used for
growing crops or grazing cattle. During the 20th century, land-
use changes have emerged as a “global” phenomenon, with
earth system consequences.
There are numerous local-to-regional scale studies of
landscape change around the world. However, to understand
their earth system implications, a consistent, synoptic, global
view is necessary. To tackle this important challenge, the
LUCC project oversaw two synthesis initiatives. The BIOME
300 project, a joint LUCC-PAGES initiative, promoted the
development of two global historical data sets of land-cover
change over the last 300 years. More recently, LUCC con-
ducted a study, commissioned by the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment (MA), to identify locations of the world under-
going the most rapid land-cover change today. In a chapter of
the project’s final synthesis book (Ramankutty et al., forth-
coming), we describe changes in global land cover, the chal-
lenges we face in monitoring them, and some proposals for
meeting those challenges.
2. HISTORICAL CHANGES IN GLOBAL LAND COVER
It is common knowledge today that tropical rainforests are
being lost to human activities at unprecedented rates with
enormous consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem func-
tioning. However, it is less well recognized that extensive land
cover changes have occurred in the past. There are numerous
well-documented case studies of the impact of ancient
humans on landscapes: case studies of Ain Ghazal in southern
Jordan, of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, of deforestation of
the cedars of Lebanon, and the story of Easter Island are all
examples. A recent study offered an intriguing global view of
early human influence, suggesting that land-use activities
might have started influencing the global atmospheric compo-
sition of carbon dioxide and methane roughly 8000 and 5000
years ago respectively.
The pace and intensity of land-cover change accelerated
over the last three centuries. According to BIOME 300, crop-
land areas increased from roughly 3–4 million km2 in 1700
to ~15–18 million km2 in 1990 (see figure). Estimates of
grazing land area are more uncertain, but available estimates
show an increase from ~500 million km2 in 1700 to ~3100
million km2 in 1990. Croplands expanded predominantly at
the expense of forests (except in the North American savan-
na and prairies), while grazing land was mostly converted
from savannas, grasslands, and shrublands (except in Latin
America).
Different parts of the world followed different trajectories
of cropland expansion, following the general patterns of Euro-
pean migration and globalization of the economy. In 1700,
much of the large-scale cultivation was confined to the Old
World – in Europe, the flood plains of India and China, and
portions of Africa. With European colonization, new settle-
ment frontiers appeared in the Americas, South Africa, Aus-
tralia, and the Former Soviet Union. North America and the
Former Soviet Union experienced large expansion of crop-
lands since ~1850. The newly developing nations of the world
in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia experienced their
most rapid cropland expansion in the post-World War II era.
China expanded its croplands steadily over most of the last
three centuries.
The post-World War II era saw a shift in land-use practices
toward intensification, with increased use of irrigation, fertil-
ization, pesticides and herbicides, new varieties of crops, and
multiple cropping. As a result, croplands were abandoned in
the eastern United States, Europe, and China. Indeed, a new
trend is the loss of prime farmland to urban expansion.
Between 1961 and 2002, croplands expanded by only 15%
globally, but irrigated areas doubled, fertilizer consumption
increased by 4.5 times, and the number of tractors used in
farming increased by 2.4 times.
3. MOST RAPID LAND-COVER CHANGES OF THERECENT DECADES
Forest change. Deforestation is not widespread through-
out the world but is largely confined to a few well-known
“hotspots” with 2 to 5% annual rates of deforestation. The
Amazon Basin and Southeast Asia are the regions with the
largest number of deforestation hotspots. The temperate
and boreal forests are relatively less well studied, but it is
believed that forest degradation in Eurasia is increasing
from unsustainable logging and increase in fire frequency.
While there is some agreement about the general locations
of deforestation at a regional scale, there is much controver-
sy about the rates of deforestation. The Forest Resources
Assessment (FRA) of the Food and Agriculture Organiza-
tion (FAO) estimated a net tropical forest loss of 12 million
ha yr–1 (6.4 million ha yr–1 loss for the humid tropics
alone) during the 1990s. New remote-sensing based esti-
mates of tropical deforestation indicate that FRA may have
overestimated deforestation rates by ~31% (humid tropics)
to 114% (all tropics). Intercomparison of these studies sug-
gests that the biggest disagreement is in dry tropical Africa;
however, even when dry tropical Africa is ignored, the FRA
estimates are higher by roughly 30%. Furthermore, both the
extent and the rate of change of some open-forest biomes
under high human pressure, like the Brazilian cerrado, still
remain unassessed.
Cropland change. Southeast Asia witnessed the largest
expansion of croplands in the recent decades. The other crop-
GLOBAL CHANGES IN LAND COVERBY NAVIN RAMANKUTTY, FRÉDÉRIC ACHARD, DIOGENES ALVES, B. L. TURNER II, RUTH DEFRIES, KEES KLEIN GOLDEWIJK,
LISA GRAUMLICH, ROBIN S. REID
L A N D - C O V E R C H A N G E
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover ChangeL A N D - C O V E R C H A N G E
land hotspots were located in Bangladesh,
along the Indus valley, portions of the Middle
East and Central Asia, around the Great Lakes
of East Africa, southern Amazon Basin, and
the Great Plains of the United States (although
much of the croplands in the Great Plains is
part of a soil conservation program and is not
sown). Croplands were abandoned in the low-
lands of southeastern United States, eastern
China, and parts of Brazil and Argentina. The
post-World War II period has also seen a shift
toward cropland intensification.
Urbanization change. Roughly half the
world’s population lived in towns and cities in
the year 2000, mainly located along the
coastal zones and inland waterways, in South
and Southeast Asia, eastern US, and Western
Europe. Population growth of urban areas
outstripped those of rural areas during 1990-
2000, particularly in the developing world. In
terms of land-cover change, cities themselves only occupy
roughly 2-3% of the earth’s land surface; cities impact rural
land use, however, through their “ecological footprint”. A
handful of “global cities” (e.g., New York, London, Tokyo) have
become command centers of the globalization of economy,
finances and culture, cross-cutting the various driving forces
and trajectories of global land use dynamics.
Dryland change. Synthesis of dryland degradation studies
continues to be plagued by definitional and conceptual dis-
agreements, and by major gaps in global coverage. Reliable
data on changes in drylands are lacking; most data available to
the LUCC-MA study was heterogeneous in terms of monitor-
ing methods or indicators. Nevertheless, the available evidence
indicated that Asia was a main area with degraded drylands,
and no evidence was found supporting claims of the African
Sahel as being a desertification hotspot.
4. CHALLENGES IN CHARACTERIZING LAND-COVERCHANGES
While much progress has been made in characterizing the
rates and patterns of global land-cover change, some uncertain-
ty remains. For example, we have very poor understanding, at
the global scale, of changes in tropical dry forests, forest changes
resulting from logging, changes in fire frequency and insect
damage, soil erosion and degradation of croplands, changes in
grazing lands, dryland degradation, changes in wetlands, and
changes in suburban, peri-urban, and exurban landscapes.
Certain types of land-cover change are difficult to charac-
terize because of their complexity. For example, land-cover
modifications, which are subtle changes in the characteristics
of land cover without change in the overall classification, are
more difficult to characterize than land-cover conversions,
defined as the complete replacement of one land cover type
by another. Another issue is related to the tight coupling
between climate variability and land-cover change in some
locations. The complex relationship between precipitation
variability and vegetation change in the African Sahel,
between fires in the Amazon and El Niño events, between
grazing and desertification, or forest fragmentation and
increased susceptibility to fires and drought, leads to highly
variable, and often episodic, land-cover changes, character-
ized by positive-feedback relationships between climate and
land-use practices.
5. THE WAY FORWARD
Land-cover change monitoring requires high spatial and
temporal resolution satellite data (30m-resolution Landsat
has become the standard). However, wall-to-wall land-cover
mapping using Landsat is prohibitive at the global scale
(although, it is demonstrated at the regional-scale over
Amazonia by the annual deforestation mapping project of
INPE, Brazil), as well as difficult to perform due to issues
such as cloud cover and partial failure of the ETM+
(onboard Landsat-7) sensor. On the other hand, globally
available moderate resolution data (250m to 1km) from
AVHRR/VEGETATION/MODIS /MERIS sensors are poor at
estimating rates of deforestation without additional calibra-
tion; they, however, may be capable of identifying locations
of deforestation fronts. An optimal solution may be to use
moderate resolution data to identify locations of the world
undergoing land-cover change, and to use stratified statisti-
cal samples of Landsat-type data within them to identify
rates of change.
Land-cover monitoring needs to integrate stakeholders
(land managers) in the process. Important criteria include
1) designing the monitoring system to match the informa-
tion being requested, 2) performing analysis at the scale of
interest to the land managers, and 3) incorporating indige-
nous knowledge to obtain a more complete analysis. Land-
cover change monitoring may also need to be supplemented
by other sources of information such as local observational
networks, census data, land surveys, household surveys, etc.,
to detect subtle land-cover modifications and to enable
characterization of the complete suite of land-cover
changes.
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
Figure: Global land-cover changes from BIOME 300.
6 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
� One of the key activities of the LUCC project has beento generate syntheses of knowledge on land-use/cover
change processes, and in particular to advance understand-
ing of the causes and trajectories of land change. A middle
path was pursued between cross-sectional, broad scale
(often national) statistical analyses and local, fine scale
(often village-level) case studies. These “intermediate analy-
ses” combined the richness of in-depth case studies with the
power of generalization gained from larger samples, thus
sharing the benefits of both, while minimizing their respec-
tive weaknesses.
PROXIMATE AND UNDERLYING CAUSES
From roughly a dozen of major studies on causes of land-
use change – meta-analyses as well as collections of data in
situ across a variety of national boundaries using common
data protocols – it became clear that no single driver of land
change is at hand. For example, a nuanced consideration of
the population variable is needed for decadal-scale processes
(i.e., never works alone but always with other factors in syner-
getic interaction, is often endogenous, and migrations is a
“fast” demographic variable with impacts on land use). As a
consequence, the division, as originally laid down in the
LUCC science plan, between proximate causes (i.e., agricul-
tural expansion, wood extraction, infrastructure extension)
and underlying driving forces (i.e., economic, institutional,
technological, demographic and cultural factors) has been
enriched. Other variables deemed as important in land
change processes were mediating factors, trigger events, and
accelerating or attenuating feedbacks. It is now widely accept-
ed that multiple factors in synergetic interactions dominate
land-change processes, and that these causal clusters vary
across regions and time.
On the one hand, LUCC studies did not follow those pro-
ponents of complexity who state that correlations between
land change and multiple causative factors are contextual,
many and varied, and do not reveal any distinct pattern. Not
denying the fact that context matters, our comparisons of
hundreds of disparate case studies in meta-analyses revealed
that a limited and recurrent set of variables are associated
with major land-change classes. Taking the case of desertifi-
cation, a set of such ‘robust’ factors has been identified to
include changes in precipitation combined with government
policy promoting growth in the agricultural sector and
remote, urban or global demands for agricultural commodi-
ties (such as cotton, grain, and grapes) along with the intro-
duction of new technology in the context of a tenure regime
ill-suited to these new circumstances and lacking flexibility.
This example not only proves that single-factor causation
(e.g., undue management by indigenous pastoralists) must
be dismissed, but it also points to the operation of coupled
human-environment systems within which land managers
are sensitive to social and biophysical feedbacks, and adjust
land-use decisions accordingly. Likewise, from a wide array
of case studies, a suite of social and biophysical factors have
been found to be associated with deforestation, cropland
change, urbanization, and desertification, as laid down in a
book chapter of the project’s final synthesis book (Geist et
al., forthcoming).
TRAJECTORIES OF LAND CHANGE
Place-based research and syntheses in the form of com-
parative analyses identified some dominant pathways of
land-use change. Pathways (or trajectories) usually encom-
pass typical successions or dominant “stories” of causes and
events leading, for example, to tropical deforestation or
desertification. However, trajectories not only vary substan-
tially between major geographical entities but also over
time. In a forest frontier region such as the Brazilian Ama-
zon, for example, rubber extraction for the world market
(from end of 19th to mid-20th century) was followed by inte-
gration of forested regions into national economic develop-
ment, mainly through pasture creation (2nd half of 20th cen-
tury). More recently, cattle ranching that heavily depended
on subsidies and land speculation in the 1970s and 1980s
evolved into intensified land uses for (semi)urban markets,
relying upon well-developed transport and other infrastruc-
tures to satisfy local as well as national demand for cattle-
based products. Most recently, there is indication that glob-
alized market demands regain power in local land-use deci-
sions to convert forests (e.g., for soybean and beef). Thus,
what appears to be a typically homogenous agricultural
frontier pathway in the land-use history of forested main-
land South America, related to in-migrating individual
colonists’ land-use decisions, is indeed driven by local urban
as well as remote economic influences, with strong oscilla-
tions and overlaps between poverty- and capital-driven
land-use dynamics.
Some of the conclusions from the analysis of pathways
of land-use change point to the need to consider sufficient-
ly long land change histories to track a region’s transforma-
tion over time, including land-use transitions. Also, the
ways in which people make land-use decisions represents
an important set of proximate factors that influence land
use, but these framing practices in turn influence and are
influenced by other (underlying) driving forces. Apart from
purely economic deliberations, land managers commonly
have various motivations, collective memories, and person-
al histories, and it is their attitudes, values, beliefs, and indi-
vidual perceptions which influence land-use decisions, for
example, through their perception of and attitude toward
risk. Understanding the controlling models of various
actors may thus explain the management of resources,
adaptive strategies, compliance or resistance to policies, or
social learning, and therefore social resilience in the face of
land-use change.
CAUSES, TRAJECTORIES AND SYNDROMES OF
LAND-USE/COVER CHANGEBY HELMUT GEIST, ERIC LAMBIN, WILLIAM MCCONNELL AND DIÓGENES ALVES
L A N D - U S E D Y N A M I C S
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 7
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
are experienced as constraints. They force local land man-
agers into degradation, innovation, or displacement path-
ways. The other causes are associated with the seizure of new
opportunities by land managers who seek to realize their
diverse aspirations.
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
Table: Typology of the causes of land-use change (from Lambin et al., 2003)
L A N D - U S E D Y N A M I C S
Resource scarcity causing pressure of production onresources
Changing opportuni-ties created by markets
Outside policy intervention
Loss of adaptive capacity and increasedvulnerability
Changes in socialorganization, inresource access, and in attitudes
Slow Natural population growth
and division of land
parcels
Domestic life cycles that
lead to changes in labor
availability
Loss of land productivity
on sensitive areas follow-
ing excessive or inappro-
priate use
Failure to restore or to
maintain protective works
of environmental
resources
Heavy surplus extraction
away from the land man-
ager
Increase in commercializa-
tion and agro-industrial-
ization
Improvement in accessibil-
ity through road construc-
tion
Changes in market prices
for inputs or outputs (e.g.,
erosion of prices of pri-
mary production, unfavor-
able global or urban-rural
terms of trade)
Off-farm wages and
employment opportuni-
ties
Economic development
programs
Perverse subsidies, policy-
induced price distortions
and fiscal incentives
Frontier development
(e.g., for geopolitical
reasons or to promote
interest groups)
Poor governance and
corruption
Insecurity in land tenure
Impoverishment (e.g.,
creeping household debts,
no access to credit, lack
of alternative income
sources, and weak buffer-
ing capacity)
Breakdown of informal
social security networks
Dependence on external
resources or on assistance
Social discrimination (eth-
nic minorities, women,
lower class people, or caste
members)
Changes in institutions
governing access to
resources by different land
managers (e.g., shift from
communal to private
rights, tenure, holdings,
and titles)
Growth of urban aspira-
tions
Breakdown of extended
family
Growth of individualism
and materialism
Lack of public education
and poor information flow
on the environment
Fast Spontaneous migration,
forced population dis-
placement, refugees
Decrease in land availabili-
ty due to encroachment
by other land uses (e.g.,
natural reserves or the
tragedy of enclosure)
Capital investments
Changes in national or
global macro-economic
and trade conditions that
lead to changes in prices
(e.g., surge in energy
prices or global financial
crisis)
New technologies for
intensification of resource
use
Rapid policy changes (e.g.,
devaluation)
Government instability
War
Internal conflicts
Illness (e.g., HIV)
Risks associated with nat-
ural hazards (e.g., leading
to a crop failure, loss of
resource, or loss of produc-
tive capacity)
Loss of entitlements to
environmental resources
(e.g., expropriation for
large-scale agriculture,
large dams, forestry proj-
ects, tourism and wildlife
conservation), which leads
to an ecological marginal-
ization of the poor
‘SYNDROMES’ OF LAND CHANGE
Case study comparisons revealed that not all causes of
land change and all levels of organization are equally impor-
tant. This prompted an attempt to reduce the complexity of
the analysis of causes by identifying a limited suite of
processes and variables which makes the problem tractable
at any scale. The syndrome approach has already been
applied, aiming at a high level of generality in the descrip-
tion of mechanisms of environmental degradation. Land-
use change is driven by a few high-level causes or syn-
dromes, as formed by the combination of ‘slow’ or ‘fast’ vari-
ables (see table): (a) resource scarcity leading to an increase
in the pressure of production on resources, (b) changing
opportunities created by markets, (c) outside policy inter-
vention, (d) loss of adaptive capacity and increased vulnera-
bility, and (e) changes in social organization, in resource
access, and in attitudes. Some of these fundamental causes
Submission of material for assessment by the IPCC Working Group II FourthAssessment: Climate Change, Adaptationand Vulnerability
Deadline: 14th April 2006www.ipcc-wg2.org/index.html
8 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
PIXELS OR AGENTS?Modelling Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
BY PETER VERBURG, KASPER KOK AND TOM VELDKAMP
� Since the publication of the LUCC science plan andimplementation strategy, considerable advances in the field of
regional and global land-use change models have been made.
The science plan indicated that the major task would be the
development of a new generation of land-use/cover change
models capable of simulating the major socio-economic and
biophysical driving forces of land-use and land-cover change.
In addition, these models were supposed to be able to handle
interactions at several spatial and temporal scales. Recent pub-
lications indicate that the LUCC science community has suc-
cessfully met this challenge: a wide range of advanced models,
aiming at different scales and research questions, is now avail-
able. One of the most important observations that can be
made after a review of land-use/cover change models is the
wide variety in approaches and concepts underlying the mod-
els. Particularly noteworthy are recent advances in the devel-
opment of agent-based models. However, the diversity in
modelling approaches should continue to be encouraged and
potential complementarities should be exploited.
WHY MODEL?
Modelling involves the use of artificial representations of
the interactions within the land-use system to explore its
dynamics and possible future development. Modelling should
be seen as one of the methods in the portfolio of techniques
and approaches available to unravel the dynamics of the land-
use system. Whereas descriptive and narrative approaches
focus on mostly qualitative descriptions of the land-use sys-
tem, models require a structural, mostly quantitative, analysis.
Gaps in knowledge become obvious during the model-build-
ing process, and the dependence of land-use patterns and cru-
cial relationships on changes in key variables can be tested.
Such analysis can help to identify the most important mecha-
nisms of change in a certain area that could not be identified
from field observations. Such results may lead to new insights
or guide further analysis of the land-use change processes. In
this perspective, models are used as a learning tool to formal-
ize knowledge. Since real-life experiments in land-use systems
are difficult, computer models can be used as a computational
laboratory in which the hypotheses about the processes of
land-use change are tested.
Apart from being a learning tool in unravelling the driving
factors and system dynamics, land-use change models play an
important role in exploring possible future developments in
the land-use system. With a model the functioning of the sys-
tem can be explored through “what-if” scenarios and the visu-
alization of alternative land-use configurations that may be
the result of policy decisions or developments in society as
described in scenarios. These exploratory and projective
capacities allow models to be used as a communication and
learning environment for stakeholders involved in land-use
decision-making. Projections can be used as an early warning
system for the effects of future land-use changes and pinpoint
hotspots that are priority areas for in-depth analysis or policy
intervention.
CONTRASTING APPROACHES
The diversity of models and modelling approaches has
become increasingly large, which provides a major challenge
when preparing a review. This diversity can be explained by
the wide range of research topics in which models are used as
a tool, the different scales of application, ranging from the
very local to the global extent and the absence of an all-com-
passing theory of land-use change. The widely different
objectives as well as the development of models that inte-
grate different theories and modelling concepts makes it
troublesome to classify models or approaches into distinct
categories. Therefore, a book chapter in the project’s final
synthesis book (Verburg, Kok, Veldkamp and Pontius, forth-
coming) indicates a number of distinguishing issues rather
than model categories. These issues mostly refer to archetyp-
al descriptions of contrasts in approach or concept, even
though most actual models do not comply with these
extreme descriptions. The simplest distinction can be made
between modelling approaches that aim at explicating the
spatial dimensions of LUCC and those that do not address
location issues. The majority of the modelling approaches
are spatially explicit due to the general notion that “location
matters” and the importance of the spatial variation in bio-
physical and socio-economic constraints and opportunities.
It is also possible to make a distinction between broad groups
of models based on their temporal explicitness. Dynamic
models can provide insight into the complex interactions
operating on land. These models are especially useful in cases
where there are nonlinearities, path-dependencies, and other
complex, emergent properties. Static models, such as most
statistical models, do not explicitly account for temporal
interactions but can be used to derive strong, quantitative
measures of the relationships among a set of variables and
how these generate, in equilibrium, a particular, spatial pat-
tern of land-use/cover change. Another major difference
between broad groups of land-use models is the role of theo-
ry. Although all modelling approaches somehow use theory
as a guiding principle in selecting driving factors and rela-
tionships, major differences can be distinguished. Whereas
some, mostly deductive, approaches aim at extending and
testing theory formulation, others use inductive reasoning
based on extensive data sets of land-use/cover (change) in
combination with statistical techniques to specify the rela-
tionships within the model. Although these approaches may
start from a different perspective, they may provide comple-
mentary information: inductive explorations may suggest
mechanisms that can be included in theory while deductive
approaches suggest factors that are causally related and thus
should be accounted for in inductive models. A final distinc-
tion between model types can be made based on the simulat-
M O D E L S O F L A N D C H A N G E
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 9
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
ed objects. In many spatially explicit models the unit of
analysis is an area of land, either a polygon representing a
field, plot or census track, or a pixel as part of a raster-based
representation. Land-use changes are calculated for these
spatial objects, resulting in maps that show the changes in
land-use pattern. The disadvantage of this “land-
based”approach is the poor match with the agents of land-
use change. Individual farmers or plot owners are usually not
represented explicitly and the simulations usually do not
match with the units of decision making. A second, rapidly
expanding, group of models use individual agents as units of
simulation. Several characteristics define agents: they are
autonomous, they share an environment through agent com-
munication and interaction, and they make decisions that tie
behaviour to the environment. Such multi-agent systems
emphasize the decision-making process of the agents and the
social organization and landscape in which these individuals
are embedded. An agent can represent any level of organiza-
tion (a herd, a village, an institution, etc.), and is not thus
necessarily an individual. Agent-based approaches have used
a range of models of human decision making, from simple
heuristics to fully rational or bounded rationality specifica-
tions. A disadvantage of the agent as the basic unit of simula-
tion is the difficulty to adequately represent agent behaviour
and to link it to the actual land areas. Simple, highly abstract,
multi-agent models have been successfully used to examine
alternative processes that may lead to collective behaviour in
land-use decision making. Well established multi-agent
models to predict changes for real landscapes have become
available only recently. Such models are very data demanding
and the specification of realistic agent behaviour and diversi-
ty is very challenging, especially when it comes to the behav-
iour of agents at higher levels of organizations such as insti-
tutions.
WHAT’S THE BEST MODEL?
There is no single modelling approach that is clearly supe-
rior to model land-use/cover change. The choice of model is
largely dependent on the research or policy questions that
need to be answered. No modelling approach is capable to
answer all questions. Furthermore, the research questions may
pose restrictions on the applicability and
suitability of a particular model by its spatial
and temporal scale and dominant land-use
change process. For example, a spatially
explicit cellular automata model may be well
suited to explore urban growth dynamics but
is incapable of fully exploring the driving
factors of agricultural transitions. The wide
selection of models and modelling
approaches that has become available pro-
vides the researcher with the opportunity to
select the modelling approach that best fits
the research questions and characteristics of
the study area. In many cases it may even be
most appropriate to use different models to
study the same region. Comparing the out-
comes of such models may lead to a better
and more complete understanding of the
system dynamics. Again, the different modelling approaches
are not competitors, but complements that can inform each
other. Agent-based models can explore mechanisms that can,
later, be included in spatial simulation models.
THE WAY FORWARD
Recent developments show that a number of modelling
approaches are starting to combine different modelling con-
cepts and techniques into “hybrid” models. Such models use
the strength of different concepts to model the different
processes of land-use change, acknowledging that no single
technique or approach sufficiently describes the different
processes at all the spatial and temporal scales relevant to
land-use/cover change. The development of “hybrid”
approaches may lead to elaborated and complex models.
Therefore, the development of such approaches should take
care for a good balance between simplicity (and transparency)
and complexity depending on the characteristics of the system
studied and the research/policy questions to be answered.
Within the LUCC community a plea is frequently made for
the use of multi-agent models. The use of multi-agent models
should indeed be encouraged because these models offer a
promising and yet mostly unexplored way to simulate land use
dynamics at the level of the actual decision making. However,
the potential strengths of multi-agent models cannot cover the
benefits of all other modelling approaches. Multi-agent mod-
els generally have high data requirements and their specifica-
tion requires deep understanding of decision making when
they are used to simulate realistic case studies. For some stud-
ies this detail is essential, but for many studies well-calibrated
spatial simulation models are easier to specify and provide suf-
ficient detail. Therefore, the diversity in modelling approaches
should be encouraged and potential complementarities
should be exploited. Only by doing this, models of land-
use/over change will continue to be an important tool in
improving our understanding of land-use/cover change
processes and in informing discussions among stakeholders
(see figure).
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
Figure: Model outputs can initiate discussions on the future of land use: an example of a model run for Europe based on the EURURALIS project
M O D E L S O F L A N D C H A N G E
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Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
GLOBAL LAND SCENARIOSThe Search for the Future of Land
BY JOSEPH ALCAMO AND GERALD BUSCH
� It was only fairly recently that the global scientific com-munity turned its attention to the future of land use and land
cover on earth. Of course spatial planners and scientists have
concerned themselves for decades with land-use changes on
the local to national scale. But it took the linkage of tropical
deforestation with global atmospheric CO2 to make land-use
change a global issue. From the work carried out so far, it has
become clear that to anticipate future climate change and
other global changes it is necessary to project the future of
global land use and cover. Yet the scientific community has
been hesitant to take up this challenge – an understandable sit-
uation considering that the projection of land use/cover
requires the simulation of global vegetation (including the
computation of future areas of cropland, forest and grassland)
as well the modelling of society’s countless decisions on where
to settle, where to build, where to grow its crops, and what
lands to protect. Some researchers have found a limited solu-
tion to this challenge by developing scenarios of future land
use and cover. Scenarios are plausible views of the future based
on “if, then” assertions – if the specified conditions are met,
then future land use and land cover will be realized in a partic-
ular way. Scenario analysis, as presented in a book chapter of
the LUCC project’s final synthesis book (Alcamo et al., forth-
coming) does not eliminate the uncertainties of the future
state of land, but it does allow researchers to sum up current
knowledge in the form of consistent, conditional statements
about the future.
Two main inputs are needed for developing global land sce-
narios. First, a coherent set of assumptions are required for the
driving forces of future land use/cover such as demographic
changes, economic growth and technological development.
Second, a model is needed to explain how driving forces affect
different types of land use and cover. While there are many dif-
ferent approaches to modelling land-use and land-cover
change, only two have been applied globally (land-use
accounting models and rule-based/cellular automata models)
because of data deficiencies, scaling mismatches, or long
preparation and run time. Figures 1 and 2 show selected glob-
al scenarios based on these modelling approaches. Included
are the Global Environmental Outlook scenarios of the United
National Environment Programme, the “SRES” scenarios of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the sce-
narios of the Global Scenarios Group.
The higher scenarios of future agricultural land (see fig-
ure 1) follow from assumptions about high population
growth rates together with low but steady economic growth
which combine to stimulate large increases in food demand.
At the same time assumed slower rates of technological
progress lead to slow to negligible increases in crop yield.
These combined effects lead to a sizeable expansion of agri-
cultural land, up to 40% between 1995 and
2100 (see figure 1).The majority of scenar-
ios show an expansion of agricultural land
during this period. The lower scenarios
have lower population assumptions leading
to smaller food demands while higher eco-
nomic growth stimulates technological
progress leading to rapid increases in crop
yields. The sum of these effects is lower
demand for agricultural land, with the low-
est scenario showing a decrease of more
than 20% in the global area of agricultural
land. Such large increases and decreases
could have an important effect on the mag-
nitude of greenhouse gas emissions, release
of nutrients and other trace substances to
aquatic ecosystems, and other large scale
impacts on the earth system.
The global forest scenarios largely mir-
ror the agricultural scenarios (see figure 2),
and illustrate both the positive and negative
aspects of existing scenarios. On one hand,
the forest scenarios are a valuable illustra-
tion of the connection between agricultural
trends and the future tempo of global
deforestation or afforestation. On the other
hand, these scenarios imply that forest
trends are driven almost exclusively by
Figure 1: Global scenarios of agricultural land from 1995 to 2100. Sources: Scenarios 1, 2,3, 4: IPCC-SRES scenarios “A1”, “A2”, “B1”, “B2” (IPCC, 2000) computed with IMAGEmodel (IMAGE-Team, 2001). Scenarios 5, 6, 7, 8: Scenarios of Global Scenario Group“Market Forces”, “Policy Reform”, “Fortress World”, “Great Transition” computed by
PoleStar model (Kemp-Benedikt et al., 2002). Scenarios 9, 10: “GEO-3” scenarios (UNEP,2004) “Markets First”, “Policy First” computed with PoleStar model. “Agricultural land”
comprises the land cover classes “Agricultural Land” and “Extensive Grassland” within theIPCC-SRES scenarios computed by the IMAGE model, and is the sum of “Cropland” and
“Grazing Land” in the remaining scenarios.
Figure 1
Scenarios with high population growth, slow technologicalimprovements
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
2060
2070
2080
2090
2100
[Year 1995 = 1]
1
2
3
45
6
7
8
10
9Scenarios with higher economicgrowth, faster technologicalimprovements, and changes in foodpreferences
S C E N A R I O S O F L A N D C H A N G E
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 1 1
Land-Use and Land-Cover ChangeS C E N A R I O S O F L A N D C H A N G E
cropland expansion or contraction and only deal superfi-
cially with global trade in forest products and plans for
large-scale carbon sequestration in forests. Global scenarios
in general need to incorporate many more of the actual
driving forces of land-use/cover change and in a more realis-
tic way.
Despite these simplifications, large scale scenarios can pro-
vide insights and raise provocative questions. The set of
African forest scenarios, for example, show the interesting
feature of distinct turning points at which deforestation
reverses its direction some time between
2010 and 2050 (see figure 3). Several differ-
ent scenarios point to an eventual slowing of
food demand and technological “catch-up”
in Africa which accelerates improvements in
crop yield. The net effect is a shift from
expanding to contracting agricultural land
and a reversal of the trend in deforestation.
But even if the pressure of expanding crop-
land is alleviated, can deforestation be eco-
logically reversed within this time frame?
And what are the consequences of this rever-
sal on terrestrial biodiversity, the global
water cycle and other aspects of the earth
system? By stimulating such questions, sce-
nario analysis of land use/cover contributes
to setting the research agenda of earth sys-
tem science.
Where do we go from here? Up to now
most efforts at developing global scenarios
have focused on agricultural land, and this
is sensible considering the central role of
agriculture in determining the landscapes
of the earth. But focusing too strongly on
only one type of land gives an incomplete
picture about the impacts of land-use
changes on the earth system. To achieve a
more complete picture, global scenarios
must also incorporate a realistic estimate of
future grasslands, forests and urban land.
While we work on expanding the scope of
the scenarios we should also extend the
methodologies used to compute global sce-
narios. Researchers must try to overcome
the barriers noted above (e.g., data defi-
ciencies) that hinder the application of dif-
ferent types of land-use models to global
scenario analysis.
Summing up, while we are only in the
early stages of analysing the future state of
land use and land cover on earth, we have
already learned much from existing scenar-
ios. They indicate the possibility of long term
and large scale changes in land use and land
cover with implications on many aspects of
the earth system. They hint that long term
trends may be reversed after some decades.
Their message is that we are mistaken if we
assume that current land-use/cover patterns
will remain the same, and we should do our best to develop
plausible views of its future changes.
AcknowledgementThis article is reprinted, in a slightly shortened version,
from LUCC Newsletter No. 10, 12-14, with kind permission of
the authors and LUCC International Project Office.
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website at
www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
Figure 2: Global scenarios of forest land from 1995 to 2100. The key to scenario numbers isthe same as in Figure 1. “Forest land” is defined as the sum of “Carbon Plantations”,“Regrowth Forest”, “Boreal Forest”, “Cool Conifer Forest”, “Temperate Mixed Forest”,
“Temperate Deciduous Forest”, “Warm Mixed Forest”, and “Tropical Forest” within the SRES scenarios computed by the IMAGE model. For the
remaining scenarios forest land is the sum of “Natural Forest” and “Plantation”.
Figure 2
0.4
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0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
2060
2070
2080
2090
2100
[Year 1995 = 1]
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8
10
9
Figure 3
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2000
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2100
[Year 1995 = 1]
1
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810
9
Turning points: Population growthand per capita consumption slowsagricultural technology catches upReversible deforestation?
Figure 3: Scenarios of forest land in Africa from 1995 to 2100. The key to scenario numbersis the same as in Figure 1. “Forest land” is defined as in Figure 2.
1 2 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
MULTIPLE IMPACTS OF LAND-USE/COVER CHANGEBY ABHA CHHABRA, HELMUT HABERL AND ADEMOLA BRAIMOH
� The directly human-induced modification and conver-sion of land-cover due to underlying forces of demographic,
economic, technological, policy/institutional, and cultural or
socio-political factors are one of the most visible of global
changes over the last three centuries. The accelerated pace,
magnitude, and spatial extent of these human transformations
of land has significantly influenced the earth's environment at
local, regional and global scales. Land-use/cover change is
increasingly recognized as a major driver of global environ-
mental change, while its multiple impacts may be associated
with “positive” or “negative” influences that affect the ability of
biological systems to support human needs. The continued
increase in food and fibre production, resource use efficiency,
wealth, livelihood securi-
ty, welfare and human
well-being are among the
positive impacts of land-
use/land cover changes.
However, these changes
are also associated with
undesirable or negative
influences such as mas-
sive alterations of bio-
geochemical cycles (e.g.,
nitrogen, carbon and
water), ecosystem pro-
cesses, earth-atmosphere
interactions, loss of bio-
diversity, and soil degra-
dation at different spatial
and temporal scales; as
pointed out in a book
chapter of the LUCC
project’s final synthesis
book (Chhabra et al.,
forthcoming).
Agricultural intensi-
fication has resulted in
direct and indirect
impacts on ecosystem
conditions at the local
scale, and climate change
at regional and global scales. Impacts of land-use/cover
changes can be analysed by assessing changes in patterns and
processes in ecosystems, e.g. by calculating human appropri-
ation of net primary production (HANPP), changes in bio-
mass standing crop, carbon stocks etc. New empirical studies
have also shown that human-induced reduction in biomass
energy availability of ecosystems results in species loss. Bio-
diversity losses currently driven by habitat destruction asso-
ciated with land-cover change will be further exacerbated by
future climate change, resulting in huge economic and socie-
tal consequences.
The widespread usage of biocides for increased agricultural
output growth contributing to food security in most regions
of the world also results in adverse human health conse-
quences. Land-use/cover changes directly affect the habitat of
insect vectors of infectious human diseases e.g. malaria,
African trypanosomiasis, Dengue fever. Increased vulnerabili-
ty to a variety of health risks ranks high among health con-
cerns related to land-use/cover change. The indirect impacts
on health are associated with increased atmospheric concen-
trations of greenhouse gases (mainly methane, nitrous oxide,
and carbon dioxide) resulting in global warming, stratospher-
ic ozone depletion etc.
Changes in land-use/cover also have profound influence on
the regional water balance and hydrological cycle. Soil degra-
dation is another challenge imposed by anthropogenic activi-
ties leading to water ero-
sion (top soil erosion and
terrain deformation),
wind erosion (top soil
erosion), chemical degra-
dation (fertility decline,
acidification, pesticide
pollution, salinization,
heavy metal and radioac-
tive pollution), and phys-
ical degradation (com-
paction, crusting, aridifi-
cation and water log-
ging). Intense land-
use/cover changes in
coastal zones are leading
to degradation of highly
productive ecosystems
such as coral reefs, man-
groves, estuaries etc.,
diminishing levels of fish
and shellfish populations,
reduced biodiversity, an
increase in the delivery of
nutrients and pollutants
to the coastal area, and
increased risk from natu-
ral hazards.
No globally valid
statement is possible yet about an aggregated, overall or gen-
eralized impact of land-use/cover change upon ecosystems
and people in a coupled manner. This is mainly due to the
multiplicity of impacts in terms of various types, time scales,
hierarchical scales, feedbacks or repercussions as well as fac-
tors involved. In an effort, however, to aid and inform deci-
sions that balance human needs for ecosystem goods while
mitigating unintended ecosystem responses, the considera-
tion and quantification of (hypothetical) trade-offs seems
crucial (see figure).
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
Figure: Spider diagram illustrating hypothetical trade-offs between ecosystemsgoods and ecosystem responses before (top) and after (bottom) land-use change
(DeFries, Asner and Houghton, 2004; DeFries, Foley and Asner, 2004).
ecosystem good (e.g. food)
hydrological response (e.g.
peak flow)
climate response (e.g.
temperature change)
human health response (e.g.
disease incidence)
biogeochemical response
(e.g. nutrient fluxes)
biodiversity (e.g. species
extinctions)
ecosystem good (e.g. food)
hydrological response (e.g.
peak flow)
climate response (e.g.
temperature change)
human health response (e.g.
disease incidence)
biogeochemical response
(e.g. nutrient fluxes)
biodiversity (e.g. species
extinctions)
C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F L A N D C H A N G E
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Land-Use and Land-Cover ChangeS C I E N C E A N D P O L I C Y
LINKING LAND-USE/COVER CHANGE SCIENCE AND POLICYBY ROBIN S. REID, XU JIANCHU AND HELMUT GEIST
INTRODUCTION
The need to balance human well-being and environmental
sustainability involves adjusting the way we use ecosystem
goods and services produced by the land. Land use is at the
center of these trade-offs. A large body of policies are just a
reminder that the use of land is a highly political activity, i.e.,
determination of land use should not be left to chance, to
individual land owners or to the market alone. Prominent
examples – involving policies indirectly influencing land use
(e.g., fiscal policies, property law), relating to land-based
activities (e.g., agricultural policy), and policies affecting land
use directly (e.g., nature conservation) – originate from all
biomes of the earth. In lowland Amazonia, developing road
infrastructure within the framework of large-scale develop-
ment programs has created a potent avenue for deforestation.
On humid forest uplands in Southeast Asia, land use has
changed rapidly in response to sectoral and land policies reg-
ulating resettlement, land tenure and agricultural prices. In
drylands of East Africa and Central Asia, implementation of
policy that privatizes land ownership in rangelands rapidly
causes landscape fragmentation and expansion of cultivation
and fencing. US and European macroeconomic policies,
designed to protect high intensity crop production in the
temperate zone, create trade barriers on free importation of
food products, affecting the competitive ability of smallhold-
er farmers in tropical countries, which affects the way farmers
choose to use their land.
Land-use/cover change science has matured into a highly
credible source of clear, salient and useful information for
those interested and involved in policy-making. This lies at the
heart of a book chapter of the project’s final synthesis book,
which expands on examples of the interactions between land-
use science and policy by first describing the key, credible les-
sons from the science of land-use/cover change that may be
relevant to policy; then, exploring examples where land-
change science is already part of the policy process; and, final-
ly, suggesting how the links between science and policy can be
improved. Integration of science and policy is mainly
addressed by a conceptual framework that addresses key char-
acters of a credible, salient and legitimate science that success-
fully links with policy making (Reid et al., forthcoming).
KEY PUBLIC POLICY LESSONS
A few policy lessons can be distilled from what has been
learned in the framework of the LUCC project. These are
meant to be key messages to land managers and political lead-
ers, hopefully suitable to promote sustainable land use. For
example, land change scientists show a limited suite of recur-
rent forces cause land change around the globe. This implies
that causes are not infinite and that policy makers can pro-
mote sustainable land uses by focusing on – and weakening or
reversing – particular “perverse” causes. Misguided sectoral
and macro-economic government policies (e.g., price con-
trols on agricultural inputs and outputs, infrastructure sup-
port, and taxation) are some of the most important causes of
land change, and thus are one key held by policy makers to
influence either sustainable or unsustainable paths of land
use across the globe. Lifestyle choices and consumption pat-
terns of material and non-material goods are also affecting
land-use choices all over the world (e.g., choices away from
farming to construction of leisure homes in pleasant but eco-
logically fragile ecosystems). Policy makers may be more suc-
cessful if they look for and address the underlying causes of
land-use change (institution, policies, population) rather
than only the proximate causes (logging, cultivation), and if
they take into consideration multiple and often interacting
causes (see figure).
Other lessons are more relevant for specific land uses. For
example, in rangelands in arid or semi-arid tropical and sub-
tropical zones, mobility is critical to sustainable land use, and
policies that support mobile lifestyles will curb overgrazing
(or over-utilization of resources). Pastoral land use, all over
the world, is shrinking as farmers push further into marginal
lands and herders settle more often around infrastructure for
water, health and education. Access to large and diverse land-
Figure: Conceptual model showing where, during the processes ofland-use change, national-level policy is likely to have the most
impacts on land use (in red) or where intervention will be more dif-ficult (yellow). Local policy will more easily impact the proximate
causes of change; however, unless the underlying causes areaddressed at the same time, local action may not be sustainable.
1 4 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
scapes is critical to maintaining productivity of livestock and
reducing vulnerability of pastoral families, particularly during
drought. Recent privatization and sale of pieces of pastoral
rangelands by pastoral peoples has been aptly termed ‘selling
wealth to buy poverty’. In other agricultural systems, shifting
cultivators and mountain farmers use mobility as a strategy to
access resources over time. Policies need to provide mobile
services to mobile communities to allow them good health
care and educational opportunities while they move livestock
to seasonal pastures.
Specific ‘entry points’ exist where revised or new policies can
improve land-use practices, particularly to weaken positive
feedbacks that accelerate land degradation (see figure). For
example, policy on humid forests could intervene to weaken
some of the amplifying feedbacks linked to forest decline by
revising “deforestation policies” or generating new policy
(much deforestation is caused by poor governance and perverse
subsidies like tax-breaks and low-interest loans that encourage
farmers or land speculators to convert forests). Some of these
policy instruments are easier for policy makers to manipulate
than others (tax breaks, loans), and thus are the first places for
policy action. Policy can also be targeted to strengthen negative
feedbacks that slow the changes having the most negative
impacts on ecosystem goods and services (see figure). For
example, good communication of the location of adverse
impacts of land-use changes to policy makers can allow them to
react in a timely manner to particularly fast or unexpected
changes, or to start a protracted policy discussion in anticipa-
tion of future changes. The keys here are communication of
information in a way that is useful to policy makers, as well as
their early and continuous engagement during the process of
scientific analysis. It is not uncommon that there can be delicate
tip points between sustainable trajectories and those that cause
degradation, as demonstrated by various local scale case studies
of land change. This implies that scientists need to help monitor
the effects of policy instruments, so that unexpected effects can
be countered before degradation starts or becomes too severe.
SUCCESSES, FAILURES, AND WAYS FORWARD TO IMPROVE
Producing credible scientific results is only one prerequisite
for establishing strong links between science and policy. Suc-
cessful links usually require scientists to listen to what is need-
ed in policy making, to create new scientific designs and data
that address these needs, and to actively engage stakeholders
with different viewpoints. Clearly, the different worldviews of
researchers and policy makers create a cultural gap preventing
adequate use of research and adequate understanding of the
needs of policy makers (the groups have contrasting values
and expectations and are rewarded for different behaviours). A
better understanding of the policy development process may
provide scientists with an appreciation of places where they
may engage and impact the process. For example, participato-
ry approaches and pilot demonstrations of solutions are par-
ticularly effective, and increase the legitimacy of science, while,
in contrast, non-participatory approaches can be quite inef-
fective.
Land-use change science has had some successes and some
failures in influencing policy. The key is for scientists to link
their work to social/political processes (e.g., in the form of
assessments such as the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment,
with significant input from LUCC researchers) and use this
linkage to set more ‘salient’ research priorities that address
issues of concern to policy makers and other stakeholders. For
example, in the discussion of science and policy, a focus
beyond scientists and policy makers is needed, including the
viewpoints of the land users themselves throughout the
process. Once scientists listen to questions posed by policy
makers and land users, they will be able to frame salient,
appropriate and useful policy research questions. They will
then be able to design their research to collect the most effec-
tive data to address the policy problem.
Priority problems in land use often occur at broad scales
across landscapes and regions. This creates a difficulty in poli-
cy, because, particularly in developing countries, there are few
institutions that naturally operate at these scales: many func-
tion locally or internationally, but not in the ‘missing middle’.
In general, collective action is more difficult when more peo-
ple or institutions are involved, are in different locations, and
hold different worldviews.
Much of global land-change science has improved our
understanding of connections between land use and the envi-
ronment. Some of the land-change science at the local and
national levels now focuses further along, on how big the
problem is for different stakeholders, what to do about it (mit-
igation options) and how to monitor progress on addressing
the problem. Research is likely to have the most impact if it
develops replicable and credible indicators for use in monitor-
ing and enforcement.
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
FRONTIER IN LAND-USE/COVER CHANGE RESEARCHBY THE SCIENTIFIC STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE LUCC PROJECT
S C I E N C E A N D P O L I C Y
� At the end of a ten year research project, the list of newissues to be investigated is often longer than the list of research
findings. The objective of this article is to highlight some of
the important issues at the frontier of land-use/cover change
research. The following sample of topics, which is far from
being an exhaustive list, is a condensed summary of a brain-
storming session of the Scientific Steering Committee of
LUCC, held in spring 2004.
UNDERSTANDING LAND-USE TRANSITIONS
Urbanization and migrations are likely to play an ever
dominant role in shaping new land uses, further disconnecting
spaces of consumption and production worldwide. Migration
is generally thought to have a stronger impact on land-use
change than mortality and fertility, at least at time scales of a
few decades. In future population-environment studies,
micro- to macro-scale demographic variables should be stud-
ied in context rather than as exogenous driving forces. The
development of megacities tends to dominate discussions on
urbanization (e.g., urban lifestyle impacts/influences on
remote rural areas), but networks of secondary cities and peri-
urban areas are also crucial in land-use change as urban-rural
linkages are stronger at that level.
Globalization and “export” of land use via international
trade also deserves more attention – e.g., in the case of boom-
ing economies such as China that pulls products from the
entire world with non-negligible land-use impacts in some-
times distant countries. In the same vein, future land-use
research needs to better consider constraints such as capital
availability, technology, policies, and macro-economic shocks,
and the cross-scale interactions between these factors. The
expansion of agricultural frontiers remains an important
research topic, e.g. in the Amazon, but this expansion is
increasingly linked to urbanization and globalization in ways
that remain poorly understood.
Managing transitions towards sustainable land use, which is a
normative exercise, needs to address these global-local inter-
plays. Transitions are sensitive towards global as well as local
and regional constraints and opportunities. Locally, engage-
ment and communication with stakeholders in regions where
teams conduct land-use change research need to be more sys-
tematic. This will often require, first, establishing interfaces
with other disciplines that will be relevant to assess impacts of
land-use/cover change, and, second, considering multiple
scales of governance structures, institutions, conflicts and
interactions between multiple agents.
VULNERABILITY IN THE FACE OF LAND-USE CHANGE
There are many research opportunities to understand vul-
nerability in a multidimensional, dynamic way. This research
needs to couple social as well as ecological vulnerability and
integrate the multiple impacts of land-use change on societies
and ecosystems – e.g., on social and economic well-being,
food security, health but also water resources, the carbon
cycle, and ecosystem functioning. The linkage between land
and water use needs to be better understood and incorporat-
ed into vulnerability studies. Water impacts on land-use
change are an important issue (e.g., irrigation farming in dry-
lands). One of the most important trade-offs facing many
societies engaged in intensive agriculture is between water
quality and agricultural development. Likewise, new research
requires an integration of emerging results from biocomplex-
ity research on patterns of biodiversity at multiple scales, with
strong linkages to research on conservation biology and liveli-
hood security.
While land-use change research has tended to focus on so-
called “slow variables”, a big challenge is to better integrate
extreme events of all kinds: climate events (e.g., at ENSO-type
time scales, decadal scale, etc.) but also human events (e.g.,
wars, conflicts, economic shocks). These “fast variables” often
determine the resilience and collapse of systems. Surprises
happen but the integration of surprises into land-use change
research has not yet happened to the extent required. The con-
cept of resilience establishes the link between risks from
extreme events and social well-being.
LONG-TERM SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH
The global change scientific community increasingly stud-
ies coupled human-environment systems on time scales of
hundreds to thousands of years. Land-use change researchers
have much to offer to long-term social-ecological research. At
these long-time scales, there is a strong footprint of agriculture
which needs to be better explored and quantified, including
impacts on biogeochemical cycles.
TOOLS AND METHODS
Prominent among new tools and methods is integrated
modelling. Some of the next steps needed to improve models
include better integration of social and biophysical drivers,
better modelling of decision making by agents, an improved
ability to model lag times and thresholds in land-use deci-
sions, and multisource data integration (e.g., remote sensing
with census and household survey data). Integrated modelling
work should rely on global, regional and local scale digital
databases, not just on land-cover classes, but also on land
management (fertilization, irrigation, etc.), with more partici-
patory open GIS and data sharing.
Future scenarios of land-use change should be formulated
in the context of multiple stakeholders. Agent-based models
increasingly become a tool of choice for understanding deci-
sion making, even though they should not be viewed as a
panacea. Spatially explicit, multi-agent simulation models
allow simulating surprises and evaluating their potential
impacts on the landscape.
Much has been learnt on the causes of land-use change
through meta-analyses of large numbers of case studies. A
methodological challenge is to move beyond a posteriori
meta-analyses of results, but rather conduct comparative
analyses of case studies by analyzing original data from these
case studies. This requires standardized data collection
descriptions that allow comparisons, while still recognizing
the need to fine-tune data collections to the most relevant
processes in specific localities. While a standardized land-
cover classification system has now been produced, an equiva-
lent scheme for land use is crucially needed.
More generally, land-use change researchers will have to
further diversify their portfolio of analytic methods: not just
multiple regressions but also narratives, system and agent-
based approaches, network analysis, etc.
Many of these issues will be taken up by the new IGBP-
IHDP Global Land Project (GLP).
REFERENCES to this article are included on the IHDP website
at www.ihdp.org/updatelucc05/references.htm
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 1 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover ChangeF U T U R E R E S E A R C H
A U T H O R S
1 6 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
FRÉDÉRIC ACHARD is a Scientist at the Joint Research Centre
of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy;
[email protected]; www-gvm.jrc.it.
JOSEPH ALCAMO is Professor of Environmental Sciences and
Engineering at the University of Kassel, Germany, and mem-
ber of the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee
[email protected]; www.usf.uni-kassel.de.
DIÓGENES ALVES is Senior Researcher at the National Insti-
tute for Space Research (INPE), Sao José dos Campos, Brazil,
and member of the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee;
[email protected]; www.dpi.inpe.br/dalves/Diogenes.
ADEMOLA BRAIMOH is Post-doctoral Researcher at the Unit-
ed Nations University in Tokyo, Japan; [email protected]; www.ias.unu.edu.
GERALD BUSCH is Senior Researcher and Consultant in Envi-
ronmental Sciences at the University of Kassel, Germany;
[email protected]; www.usf.uni-kassel.de.
ABHA CHHABRA is Post-doctoral Researcher at the Space
Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation,
Ahmedabad, India, and member of the LUCC Scientific
Steering Committee; [email protected]; www.isro.org.
RUTH DEFRIES is Professor of Geography at the University of
Maryland, USA; [email protected]; www.glue.umd.edu/~rdefries/homepage.
HELMUT GEIST is Executive Director of the LUCC project at
the International Project Office of the Catholic University of
Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; geist@ geog.ucl.ac.be; www.geo.ucl.ac.be/LUCC.
LISA GRAUMLICH is Executive Director of the Big Sky Insti-
tute, Montana State University, USA, and Vice Chair of the
LUCC Scientific Steering Committee; [email protected];
www.bsi.montana.edu.
HELMUT HABERL is Professor of Social Ecology at Klagenfurt
University, Vienna, Austria; [email protected];
www.iff.ac.at.
KEES KLEIN GOLDEWIJK is Senior Scientist at the Netherlands
Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP), Bilthoven, The
Netherlands; [email protected]; www.mnp.nl.
KASPER KOK is Science Officer of the LUCC Focus 3 Office at
Wageningen University, The Netherlands; [email protected]; www.lucc.nl.
ERIC LAMBIN is Professor of Geography at the Catholic Uni-
versity of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and Chair
of the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee; [email protected]; www.geo.ucl.ac.be/LUCC.
WILLIAM MCCONNELL is Assistant Professor of Geography
at Michigan State University, USA, and Science Officer of the
LUCC Focus 1 Office; [email protected]; www.indi-ana.edu/~act.
NAVIN RAMANKUT TY is an Assistant Scientist at the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, and member of the LUCC
Scientific Steering Committee; [email protected];
www.sage.wisc.edu.
ROBIN S. REID is Principal Systems Ecologist and Leader of
the Sustaining Lands and Livelihoods Programme at the
International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya,
and member of the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee;
[email protected]; http://lucideastafrica.org.
RONALD R. RINDFUSS is the Robert Paul Ziff Distinguished
Professor of Sociology and Fellow of the Carolina Population
Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA,
and member of the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee;
[email protected]; www.cpc.unc.edu.
B. L. TURNER II is Milton P. and Alice C. Higgins Professor
of Environment and Society at Clark University, Worcester,
MA, USA; [email protected]; www.clarku.edu/depart-ments/geography/faculty/turner.cfm.
TOM VELDKAMP is Professor of Soil Science at Wageningen
University, The Netherlands, Leader of LUCC Focus 3, and
member of the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee;
[email protected]; www.wau.nl.
PETER VERBURG is Assistant Professor of Environmental Sci-
ences at Wageningen University, The Netherlands; [email protected]; http://www.cluemodel.nl.
JIANCHU XU is Professor of Ethnobotany and Programme
Manager at the International Centre for Integrated Moun-
tain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal, and member of the
LUCC Scientific Steering Committee; [email protected];www.icimod.org.
LIST OF AUTHORS ARTICLES PP. 1 - 17
In Memoriam:
Anver GhaziHead of the European Commission Research Unit
on Climate Change and Natural Hazards
† 25 July 2005
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 1 7
Core ProjectsG E C H S / L O I C Z
� An international workshop on Human Security and Cli-mate Change was held in Oslo, Norway from June 21-23, 2005.
This GECHS-sponsored workshop brought together research
communities that are addressing human security from three dis-
tinct perspectives. One perspective, based on a state-centered
interpretation of human security, explored whether climate
change will lead to increased conflict and international migra-
tion. A second perspective used a broad interpretation of human
security and considered how climate change might influence
vulnerability and adaptive capacity, and hence human security. A
third perspective focused on legal and philosophical aspects of
climate change, and considered whether climate change could be
framed as an issue of national security. The workshop served as
a milestone for bringing together these diverse points of view
and expanding the debate about what climate change means for
human security. Taking advantage of the long Nordic Mid-sum-
mer night, the 65 participants from over 20 countries were able
to share research findings, experiences, and perspectives. It was
clear at the end of the event that climate change is likely to influ-
ence multiple aspects of human security. Although its impacts
on individuals, communities, and regions may trigger both con-
flict as well as cooperation, climate change represents a formida-
ble challenge to human security in the 21st Century.
The workshop was organized in collaboration with GECHS
by the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) and Center for
International Climate and Environment Research- Oslo
(CICERO), with generous funding from the Research Council
of Norway, UNEP’s Department of Early Warning and Assess-
ment, and the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Papers presented at the workshop are available on the meeting
website: www.cicero.uio.no/humsec.
KAREN O’BRIEN is Chair of the Global Environmental
Change and Human Security Project (GECHS), based at the
Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University
of Oslo, Norway; [email protected]; www.gehs.org
HUMAN SECURITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
� The LOICZ Inaugural Open Science Meeting 2005 ushedLOICZ’s second decade as a global change program. Building
on its strengths in examining material fluxes from catchments
to coast, the Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone
(LOICZ) project will now embark on a broadly expanded
research framework focusing on the interactions between
humans, ecosystems and material fluxes as drivers of coastal
change. Over the three days of the meeting, which took place
in Egmond aan Zee (The Netherlands) from 27 to 29 June
2005, a community of some 270 coastal scientists and man-
agers representing 52 countries engaged in discussion about
these interactions and their trajectories of change, including
ways to approach sustainable coastal scenarios.
Two plenary addresses each day provided an overview of the
challenges facing the global environmental community. These
presentations exemplified the broad domain of research themes
that are encompassed within the LOICZ Science Plan and Imple-
mentation Strategy (SPIS) and addressed some of the science
challenges that face the next 10 years of LOICZ activity. Plenary
addresses were followed by oral presentation sessions where a
keynote talk and paper presentations provided insight of future
research needs and work in progress in regard to the research
themes covered by the LOICZ Science plan. The meeting also
importantly included afternoon workshops to develop research
proposals and action plans targeting knowledge products.
The meeting provided opportunity for researchers and prac-
titioners to forge new linkages, or renewed ties, with colleagues
to pursue LOICZ related activities. Beyond the Open Science
Meeting, we hope that participants will have been encouraged
to become, or remain, active in the LOICZ network. The success
of LOICZ as a platform for global change research greatly
depends on the individual and collective strength of its commu-
nity members to see the program through to fruition.
MARTIN LETISSIER is Deputy Executive Officer of the LOICZ
Project, Texel, The Netherlands; [email protected]; www.loicz.org
COASTS AND COASTAL PEOPLE – SCENARIOS OF
CHANGES AND RESPONSES
� IHDP (International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change) and APN(Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research) announce the Fifth International Human Dimen-sions Workshop – Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: Water, Trade, andthe Environment, held in October 2006, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
We invite academic researchers who are in the early phases of their careers, policy makers, andpractitioners dealing with issues of water, trade, and environment, and who are based in Asia,Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America, to apply to attend this workshop. Applicationdetails will be circulated in October 2005.
Please visit our webpage www.ihdp.org for more details or contact Maarit Thiem at [email protected]
N E W S
1 8 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
In Brief
��� HIROKI HASHIZUME is the new Executive Director of
APN (Asia-Pacific Network on Global Change Research). He
is an engineer and environmental scientist with a vast field of
expertise who has held key positions with the Japanese Envi-
ronment Agency, the Ministry of Environment, and the Min-
istry of Health.
��� HOLM TIESSEN is the new Executive Director of IAI
(Inter-American Institute of Global Change Research). He is
a molecular biologist and soil scientist and was awarded the
Alexander von Humboldt Science Prize in 1998.
��� MARTIN RICE has been appointed as ESSP Coordina-
tor by the Earth System Science Partnership (consisting of
DIVERSITAS, IGBP, IHDP and WCRP). Martin Rice will be
based at the DIVERSITAS Secretariat in Paris.
��� YANYU TIAN, Scientific Secretary of
the Chinese National Committee on IHDP,
has been with the IHDP Secretariat in
Bonn, Germany, since July 2005. As a visit-
ing scientist, his current work is to assist the
team with its preparations for the 6th Open
Meeting of the IHDP research community.
As a geographer, his main field of research
is historical land-use and land-cover change.
��� SUNITA NAHRAIN and the Centre for Science and Envi-
ronment (CSE) have been awarded this years’ Stockholm
Water Prize. Ms. Nahrain is a dynamic advocate for water,
environment, human rights, democracy and health. Among
other successes, CSE has revived the idea of harvesting rain-
water as a means to manage water sources locally, which
could become a starting point for the removal of rural pover-
ty in many parts of the world.
��� The African Network on Global EnvironmentalChange Planning Workshop is held from 22 to 24 September
in Nairobi, Kenya, co-organized by the Pan-African START
(Systems for Analysis, Research and Training) Secretariat. The
purpose of the workshop is to gauge interests and preferences
of the African scientific and policy communities as to the
nature of a regional networking organization that could best
serve the needs of the two communities in support of global
change science and capacity development in Africa. Network
structures and processes, funding strategies and long-term
international support are among the issues looked into. Two
START/PACOM (Pan-African Regional Committee for
START) calls for proposals for African scientists and doctoral
fellowships, respectively, have just ended.
IN BRIEF
Yanyu Tian
Gerhard Petschel-Held* 31.1.1964 † 9.9.2005
His death leaves us shocked and deeply
shaken. We got to know him as an
excellent scientist and outstanding
personality. His early death is a great loss to the entire
community working on an interdisciplinary understand-
ing of human-environment interactions.
http://portal.pik-potsdam.de/gerhard/
Call for Proposals under the CAPaBLE ProgrammeA: Capacity Building Pro-posals for funding fromApril 2006 that are relat-ed to Global Change andSustainable Development.Deadline for submission:26th October 2005B: Comprehensive Research Proposals for Capaci-ty Enhancement, with a specific focus on ClimateChange and its effects on Water and Food Secu-rity as related to Sustainable Development.Deadline for submission: 9th November 2005.Full details can be obtained on the APN websiteat: www.apn-gcr.org/en/CAPaBLE_callforpropos-als/ capable_cfp05.htm
Our Earth’s Changing LandAn Encyclopedia of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (Two Volumes)
By Helmut Geist
Scientists predict that the envi-
ronment over the next 100 years
will be threatened by severe
challenges—the loss of biodiver-
sity, expected changes in world-
wide climate, and decreasing
amounts of arable land and
potable water for an exploding
human population. All of these
will greatly impact how the earth
will be able to support life in the future. And at the
center of these global environmental changes are
developments in land use. Over the last 300 years, and
in particular the last 50 years, the earth’s land has been
altered drastically as a result of increasing industrial-
ization and urbanization worldwide, as well as by
changes in agricultural techniques in lands under cul-
tivation. These developments raise troubling questions
about out future: How will these changes affect the
sustainability of certain types of land use? How will
they impinge upon critical regions, like rainforests and
NEW BOOKS
I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5 | 1 9
Calendar/PublicationsN E W B O O K S
deserts? Will the earth be able to provide for the basic
human needs of food, shelter, and water?
Greenwood Publishing, 2005 (forthcoming), List Price:
£125.00, ISBN 0-313-32704-1, Order by email: Green-
Seeing the Forest and the TreesHuman-Environment Interactions in Forest Ecosystems
Edited by Emilio F. Moran and Elinor Ostrom
Throughout much of human history, changes to forest
ecosystems have come about through natural climatic
changes occurring over long periods of time. But sci-
entists now find changes in forest cover dramatically
accelerated by such human activities as large-scale
agriculture, the building of dams and roads, and the
growth of cities with vast areas of asphalt. Changes that
once took centuries now take only decades. ‘Seeing the
Forest and the Trees’ examines changes in land cover
and land use in forested regions as major contributors
to global environmental change. It investigates why
some forested areas thrive even in the presence of high
human densities and activity while others decline and
disappear.
The book brings together findings from an ongoing,
large-scale, multidisciplinary research project under-
taken by anthropologists, geographers, economists,
sociologists, political scientists, environmental scien-
tists, and biologists in more than twelve countries at
over eighty locations. After addressing theory and
methodology, including chapters on satellite remote
sensing, geographic information systems, and model-
ing of land-cover change, the book presents case stud-
ies that compare data across sites and across temporal
and spatial scales. It contributes to Human Dimen-
sions in Global Change research and proposes new
directions for this area of study.
MIT Press, July 2005, 504 pages, 59 illus., 8 color ,
$83.00/£53.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-262-13453-5
Agriculture and Climate Beyond 2015A New Perspective on Future Land Use Patterns
Edited by Floor Brouwer and Bruce A. McCarl
Interactions between agriculture, climate and patterns
of land use are complex. Major changes in agriculture,
and land use patterns are foreseen in the next couple
of decades in response to shifts in climate, greenhouse
gas management initiatives, population growth and
other forces. This timely new book explores emerging
perspectives on future land use patterns, exploring
linkages between agriculture and efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. It will be widely read by
academic, researchers and policy makers with an
interest in agriculture, land use and resource econom-
ics. The book will appeal to those researching and
working at the edge of agriculture, land use and green-
house gas emissions control.
Springer, forthcoming 2005, approx. 350 p. hardcover,
special prepublication discount: € 68; Environment &
Policy, Volume 46, ISBN 1-4020-4063-6;
Special Journal on Consumption and Industrial Ecology
The Journal of Industrial Ecology, a peer-reviewed,
international quarterly published by MIT Press and
owned by Yale University, has recently published a spe-
cial issue on Consumption and Industrial Ecology. The
entire special issue is available on the web at http://mit-press.mit.edu/JIE/consumption for download at no
charge. This issue breaks new ground in providing sys-
tematic and quantitative assessments of the impact of
consumption – what we buy and what we use – on the
environment. The articles in the special issue address
the relationship between consumption and factors such
as diet change, time use, house size, worktime reduc-
tion, product life spans, quality of life, NGO advocacy
strategies, and the rebound effect, as well as the envi-
ronmental impact of consumption at the household,
city and national levels in countries around the world.
MEETING CALENDAR��� 2–6 October – Perth, Scotland, UK
Global Change in Mountain Regionshttp://www.mountain.conf.uhi.ac.uk
��� 9–13 October – Bonn, Germany
6th Open Meeting of the Global Environmental ChangeResearch Community“New Challenges for the 21st Century: Global EnvironmentalChange, Globalization and International Security”http://openmeeting.homelinux.org
��� 24–27 October – Kolding, Denmark
Oceans Past: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the History of Marine Animal Populationshttp://www.marbef.org
��� 25–29 October – Kusadasi, Turkey
7th Int. Conference on the Mediterranean Coastal Environmenthttp://www.medcoast.org.tr
��� 28–29 October – Farnham, UK
Sustainable Innovation 05: Global ‘State of the Art’ in Sustainable Product/Service Development and Designhttp://www.cfsd.org.uk/events/tspd10/index.html
��� 9–12 November – Oaxaca, Mexico
Integrating biodiversity science for human well-beinghttp://www.diversitas-osc1.org
��� 13–17 November – Melbourne, Australia
Greenhouse 2005: Action on Climate Controlhttp://www.greenhouse2005.com
��� 2–3 December – Berlin, Germany
International Organizations and Global EnvironmentalChangehttp://www.fu-berlin.de/ffu/akumwelt/bc2005/
2 0 | I H D P N E W S L E T T E R 3 / 2 0 0 5
C O N T A C T A D D R E S S E SAddresses
IHDP SECRETARIAT
• IHDP Secretariat:Barbara Göbel, Executive DirectorWalter-Flex-Strasse 3 53113 Bonn, Germany Phone: +49-228-739050Fax: [email protected]
IHDP CORE PROJECTS
� GECHS
• Global EnvironmentalChange and Human Security c/o Karen O'Brien, ChairGECHS International Project OfficeDepartment of Sociology andHuman GeographyUniversity of Oslo, [email protected]
� IDGEC
• Institutional Dimensions ofGlobal Environmental Change c/o Heike Schröder, Executive OfficerIDGEC International Project Office,Bren School of Env. Science andManagement, University of Califor-nia at Santa Barbara, CA, [email protected]://fiesta.bren.edu/~idgec/
� IT• Industrial Transformation c/o Anna J. Wieczorek,Executive OfficerIT International Project OfficeInstitute of Environmental Studies University of AsterdamThe [email protected]://130.37.129.100/ivm/research/ihdp-it/index.html
� LOICZ• Land-Ocean Interactions inthe Coastal Zonec/o Hartwig Kremer and MartinLe Tissier, Excecutive Officers,LOICZ International Project OfficeDen Burg, Texel, [email protected]
� LUCC
• Land-Use and Land-CoverChange c/o Helmut Geist, Executive Officer LUCC International Project Office University of Louvain,Louvain-la-Neuve, [email protected]/LUCC
JOINT ESSP PROJECTS
� GECAFS
• Global EnvironmentalChange and Food Systems c/o John Ingram, Executive OfficerGECAFS International ProjectOffice, NERC-Centre for Ecology &Hydrology, Wallingford, [email protected]
� GCP
• Global Carbon Projectc/o Pep CanadellExecutive OfficerGCP International ProjectOffice, CSIROCanberra, [email protected]
Tsukuba Officec/o Penelope CananNational Institute of EnvironmentalStudies, Tsukuba, [email protected]
� GWSP
• Global Water Systems Projectc/o Eric Craswell, Executive OfficerInternational Project Office GWSPCenter for Development Research,University of Bonn, [email protected]
IHDP SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE (SC)
� Chair
• Coleen Heather VogelDept. of Geography & Env. StudiesUniversity of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South [email protected]
� Vice Chair
• Roberto Sánchez-RodríguezUC-Mexus, University of CaliforniaRiverside, CA, [email protected]
• Katrina BrownSchool of Development StudiesUniversity of East Anglia,Norwich, [email protected]
• Geoffrey DabelkoEnvironmental Change and SecurityProject (ECSP)Woodrow Wilson InternationalCenter for Scholars, WashingtonD.C., [email protected]
• Carl FolkeCentre for Research on NaturalResources and the Environment(CNM)CNM, Stockholm UniversityStockholm, [email protected]
• Roberto GuimarãesUnited NationsDivision for SocialPolicy andDevelopmentNew York, NY, [email protected]
• Gernot KlepperKiel Institute of World EconomicsKiel, [email protected]
• Tatiana Kluvankova-OravskaInstitute for ForecastingSlovak Academy of SciencesBratislava, Slovak [email protected]
• Sander van der LeeuwDepartment of Anthropology,Arizona State University, Tempe,AZ, [email protected]
• Elinor OstromCenter for the Study ofInstitutions, Population &Environmental ChangeIndiana UniversityBloomington, IN, [email protected]
• Xizhe PengInstitute of Population ResearchFudan UniversityShanghai, P.R. [email protected]
• Hebe VessuriDepartment of Science Studies,Instituto Venezolano deInvestigaciones Cientificas, Caracas,[email protected]
• Paul L.G. VlekCenter for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn,Bonn, [email protected]
EX OFFICIO MEMBERSIHDP SCIENTIFICCOMMITTEE
� ICSU• Thomas RosswallExecutive Director ICSUParis, [email protected]
� I S S C• Lourdes Arizpe Universidad Nacional Autónomade México (UNAM)Cuernavaca, [email protected]
� DIVERSITAS
• Michel LoreauÉcole Normale SuperieureLaboratoire d'Écologie Paris, [email protected]
� IGBP
• Guy Brasseur Max-Planck-Institute for MeteorologyHamburg, [email protected]
� START (alternating)
• Sulochana GadgilIndian Institute of Science& Oceanic SciencesBangalore, [email protected]
• Graeme I. PearmanCSIRO Atmospheric ResearchAspendale, [email protected]
� WCRP
• Peter LemkeAlfred-Wegener-Institutefor Polar and Marine ResearchBremerhaven, [email protected]
� GECHS
• Karen O’Brien Institute for Sociology & Human GeographyUniversity of Oslo, [email protected]
� IDGEC
• Oran R. Young Bren School of Environmental Science and ManagementUniversity of California at Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara, CA, [email protected]
� IT
• Frans BerkhoutDirector, Institute forEnvironmental Studies (IVM),Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,The [email protected]
� LOICZ
• Liana Talaue McManusRosenstiel School of Marine andAtmospheric ScienceUniversity of Miami, Miami, FL,[email protected]
� LUCC
• Eric Lambin Dept. of GeographyUniversity of LouvainLouvain-la-Neuve, [email protected]
� URBANIZATION
• Karen Seto Dept. of Ecological & Environmental Sciences Stanford University, USA [email protected]
� GLP (Global Land Project)
• Richard Aspinall & Dennis OjimaInterim [email protected]@nrel.colostate.eduwww.glp.colostate.edu
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