Monitoring, modelling and managing land use change on a large scale

Hermann Lotze-Campen Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

ALTER-Net Summer School, Peyresq, 07 Sep 2008

What makes God laugh? –

Tell him about your future plans!

(Woody Allen)

Motivation

• Agriculture: between economy and environment

• Land use: food, fibre, forest, freshwater, fuel,

fertile soils, flora&fauna

• Global vs. regional perspective

• Goal: long-term, global, integrated, spatially explicit

approach to land use management

• "Gardening the world in the anthropocene"

• Biodiversity is a social issue!

• Managing <- Modelling <- Monitoring

Some principles of economic thinking

• Economics is not business management!

• Demand and supply: utility and profit maximization

• Prices as a major indicator for scarcity

• There is no such thing as a free lunch!

• Opportunity costs / shadow prices

• Relative prices and costs, substitution

• Competition, trade, efficiency

• Investment, technological change, growth

• Regulation, rules, policy

The Lund-Potsdam-Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model

Time Step:

Object:

Annual

Grid Cell (PFT fractional areas)

Vegetation Population

DynamicsTissue TurnoverTissue AllocationLight Competition

MortalityEstablishment

PFT Environmental ConstraintsDisturbance (Fire)

Land Use

Climate/ Weather

Time Step:

Object:

Daily

Plant Functional Type

(PFT) average individual

Photosynthesis

MaintenanceRespiration

Water balance

�0.5o

Information flow

Carbon & Water Fluxes

Water fluxes only

Cereals

Oilseeds

Pulses

Sugarbeets

Crop yieldsLand & Water constraints

+200 mm-200 -100 0 +100

CCSR

ECHAM4

Climate change (GCM)

LPJ (50x50 km grid)

Biophysical inputs

Income vs. Food consumption

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000

GDP / Cap / Year

Kca

l / C

ap /

Day

kcal_cap (105 countries, 1990/2000) kcal_cap (fitted values)

kcal = 802 * gdp^(0.142327) [R^2 = 0.66]

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Bill

ion

Low fertility, low mortality High fertility, high mortality Central fertility, central mortality (Lutz et al. 2001)

Demography

Income and diet

Food/Energy demand, production costs

Socioeconomicinputs

(1) MAgPIE – a global land use optimisation model• 2200 grid cells (3° resolution), 10 economic regions• 30 production activities (13 crops, livestock,

irrigation, bioenergy, land conversion)• rotational constraints• internal feed balances, international trade•• (quasi-)endogenous technological change

Lotze-Campen et al., in press

Income vs. Food consumption

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000

GDP / Cap / Year

Kca

l / C

ap /

Day

kcal_cap (105 countries, 1990/2000) kcal_cap (fitted values)

kcal = 802 * gdp^(0.142327) [R^2 = 0.66]

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Bill

ion

Low fertility, low mortality High fertility, high mortality Central fertility, central mortality (Lutz et al. 2001)

Cereals

Oilseeds

Pulses

Sugarbeets

Crop yieldsLand & Water constraints

+200 mm-200 -100 0 +100

CCSR

ECHAM4

Climate change (GCM)Demography

Income and diet

Food/Energy demand, production costs

LPJ (50x50 km grid)

Biophysical inputs

Socioeconomicinputs

Land usepatternLotze-Campen et al., in press

Income vs. Food consumption

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000

GDP / Cap / Year

Kca

l / C

ap /

Day

kcal_cap (105 countries, 1990/2000) kcal_cap (fitted values)

kcal = 802 * gdp^(0.142327) [R^2 = 0.66]

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Bill

ion

Low fertility, low mortality High fertility, high mortality Central fertility, central mortality (Lutz et al. 2001)

Cereals

Oilseeds

Pulses

Sugarbeets

Crop yieldsLand & Water constraints

+200 mm-200 -100 0 +100

CCSR

ECHAM4

Climate change (GCM)Demography

Income and diet

Food/Energy demand, production costs

LPJ (50x50 km grid)

Biophysical inputs

Socioeconomicinputs

Shadowprices

Lotze-Campen et al., in press

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

World AFR CPA EUR FSU LAM MEA NAM PAO PAS SAS

% p

er y

ear

FAO 1970-95BaselineLow_wat_saveBaseline+area

Income vs. Food consumption

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000

GDP / Cap / Year

Kca

l / C

ap /

Day

kcal_cap (105 countries, 1990/2000) kcal_cap (fitted values)

kcal = 802 * gdp^(0.142327) [R^2 = 0.66]

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Bill

ion

Low fertility, low mortality High fertility, high mortality Central fertility, central mortality (Lutz et al. 2001)

Cereals

Oilseeds

Pulses

Sugarbeets

Crop yieldsLand & Water constraints

+200 mm-200 -100 0 +100

CCSR

ECHAM4

Climate change (GCM)Demography

Income and diet

Food/Energy demand, production costs

LPJ (50x50 km grid)

Biophysical inputs

Socioeconomicinputs

Requiredtechnical

change until2050

Lotze-Campen et al., in press

Scenario:

100 EJ Bioenergy in 2050

Cropland expansionmax 250 mio. ha(~18%)

Lotze-Campen et al., preliminary results

Scenario:

100 EJ Bioenergy in 2050

No croplandexpansion

Lotze-Campen et al., preliminary results

Policy and decision-making

Public discourse and communication

Case studies(Regional nodes)

Issues(Thematic nodes)

Purpose(Synthesis nodes)

Great plains

Ama-zonia

Kala-hari

Sahel

Danuberiver

Aral sea Yellowriver

Indonesiaforest

Insitutions

Resource use

Biodiversity

Values

Economy

Global-scale research and integration

Lotze-Campen/Reusswig/Stoll-Kleemann, GAIA 2008

A conceptual structure of a Sustainability Geoscope

Geoscope implementation: Building upon the existing World Network of Biosphere Reserves and Biosphere Reserve Integrated Monitoring (BRIM)

Lotze-Campen/Reusswig/Stoll-Kleemann, GAIA 2008

Source: UNESCO MAB

• Biosphere Reserves combine nature conservation and land use

• Mission: BRs are experimental sites for sustainable development

• An initial infrastructure for Biosphere Integrated socio-ecologicalMonitoring (BRIM) already exists

Land use management

• Settlement/infrastructure, forest, cropland, pasture,

unused/protected

• From local to global

• Instruments: taxes, subsidies, tradeable permits,

regulations and planning

• Global public goods: international compensation

Our head is round –so that our thinking can change directions.

(Francis Picabia)

Challenges in large-scale land-use modelling

• Linking monetary and biophysical processes, flows and data

• Different thematic scales (e.g. vegetable oil vs. physiologically

different oil crops)

• Different temporal scales (meaning of "long-term" vs. "short-term" in

biophysical models and economic models)

• Different spatial scales (point observations vs. spatial grids vs.

polygons/administrative units)

• The treatment of technological change (exogenous vs. endogenous)

• Optimisation mode in economics vs. time-step mode in natural science

• Recursive dynamics vs. intertemporal optimisation

• The treatment of human behaviour, values, institutions

• Availability of compatible data across scales and themes

Key messages

Research

• Sustainable bioenergy production in 2050: ~50-150 ExaJoule?

• Land availability for agricultural expansion (pasture?)

• Role of technological change (ag. production, energy conversion)

• Role of international trade

• Climate change and yields (CO2 fertilization?)

• Food demand patterns?

Policy

• Potential of bioenergy for rural development

• Critical assessment of bioenergy subsidies (ag. policy, climate policy)

• Global land use management (land use planning, land rights)

• Forests/Biodiversity as a global common good

• Water management and pricing

(3) Sustainability Geoscope: a concept for monitoringglobal change and sustainable development

Goals: Improve the empirical base for Global Change research and Sustainability Science

Develop a "Macroscope" for monitoring and representing crucial partsand processes of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

Concept: A global framework for comparative regional case studies on human actions affecting sustainability

Regional nodes covering hot-spots of human-nature interactions

Thematic nodes covering key research issues

Multiple thematic nodes to be integrated at each regional node

Multiple regional nodes to be covered by each thematic node

Lucht and Jaeger, NKGCF 2001; Lotze-Campen et al. GAIA 2002, 2008

Lotze-Campen et al., preliminary results

Required rates of technical change in agriculture (2005-2055)- Baseline plus various biofuel scenarios -

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

World AFR CPA EUR FSU LAM MEA NAM PAO PAS SAS

% p

er y

ear

FAO 1970-95 Baseline Biof 100EJ Biof + area Biof + trade