An alternative approach for quantifying climate regulation by ecosystems

West, Paul; Narisma, Gemma; Barford, Carol; Kucharik, Christopher J.; Foley, Jonathan A.

doi:10.1890/090015

Cited by 77 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Indeed, other studies have shown that tropical deforestation increases mean global surface temperature, whereas deforestation in temperate and boreal regions has, if anything, a net cooling effect 1,22 . This highlights the critical importance of tropical forests for climate protection 1,2,6,21 , supporting the argument that efforts to mitigate climate change through avoided deforestation or afforestation efforts (for example, REDD+; ref. 3) will be most effective if focused on tropical forests 2,10,13 .…”

Section: Letters Nature Climate Change Doi: 101038/nclimate1346supporting

confidence: 54%

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Climate-regulation services of natural and agricultural ecoregions of the Americas

et al. 2012

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Terrestrial ecosystems regulate climate through both biogeochemical (greenhouse-gas regulation) and biophysical (regulation of water and energy) mechanisms 1,2 . However, policies aimed at climate protection through land management, including REDD+ (where REDD is Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) 3 and bioenergy sustainability standards 4 , account only for biogeochemical mechanisms. By ignoring biophysical processes, which sometimes offset biogeochemical effects 5,6 , policies risk promoting suboptimal solutions 1,2,4,7-10 . Here, we quantify how biogeochemical 11 and biophysical processes combine to shape the climate regulation values of 18 natural and agricultural ecoregions across the Americas. Natural ecosystems generally had higher climate regulation values than agroecosystems, largely driven by differences in biogeochemical services. Biophysical contributions ranged from minimal to dominant. They were highly variable in space, and their relative importance varied with the spatio-temporal scale of analysis. Our findings reinforce the importance of protecting tropical forests 7,10,12,13 , show that northern forests have a relatively small net effect on climate 5,10,13 , and indicate that climatic effects of bioenergy production may be more positive when biophysical processes are considered 14,15 . Ensuring effective climate protection through land management requires consideration of combined biogeochemical and biophysical processes 7,8 . Our climate regulation value index serves as one potential approach to quantify the full climate services of terrestrial ecosystems.Anthropogenic land use has been, and will continue to be, a major driver of the climate system 6,[16][17][18] . In terms of biogeochemical drivers, land-use change and agriculture together account for over 25% of global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions 19 . From 1990 to 2007, gross CO 2 emissions from tropical deforestation were equal to ∼40% of global fossil fuel emissions 18 . In recent years, agriculture has contributed ∼14% of total global GHG emissions 19,20 .Terrestrial ecosystems also strongly affect climate through their control over albedo and evapotransipiration 5,6,8,16,21,22 . Vegetated surfaces-especially forests-typically have lower albedos than bare ground and therefore absorb more incoming solar radiation. The reduction in net radiation (R n ) associated with deforestation has a cooling effect on the climate 5,22,23 -sometimes even outweighing GHG-induced warming 5,18 . Counteracting this, clearing vegetation reduces evapotranspiration and associated latent heat flux (LE). Without the vegetation, energy normally used to evaporate water instead heats the land surface 6,8,14,22,23 . Understanding the counteracting effects of R n and LE is key to quantifying the climate regulation values (CRVs) of different ecosystems 1 .Policies that affect land use may serve as one effective strategy contributing to climate change mitigation 2,12 or may inadvertently exacerbate the problem 24 . Major national and intern...

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Section: Letters Nature Climate Change Doi: 101038/nclimate1346supporting

confidence: 54%

“…Terrestrial ecosystems also strongly affect climate through their control over albedo and evapotransipiration 5,6,8,16,21,22 . Vegetated surfaces-especially forests-typically have lower albedos than bare ground and therefore absorb more incoming solar radiation.…”

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confidence: 99%

Climate-regulation services of natural and agricultural ecoregions of the Americas

et al. 2012

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“…Ecosystem services affected by agriculture include provisioning of food, fiber, and freshwater, regulation of climate through carbon storage as well as biophysical influence on regional air temperature and moisture, regulation of soil and groundwater recharge, runoff, and nutrient flows to freshwater, and cultural values of landscapes (2,11,23,34,36,37). In addition, agriculture directly affects aspects of natural capital like heterogeneity of landscapes, which includes diversity of ecosystem types and species (12,22,23).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land

West

Gibbs

Monfreda

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

316

207

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Expanding croplands to meet the needs of a growing population, changing diets, and biofuel production comes at the cost of reduced carbon stocks in natural vegetation and soils. Here, we present a spatially explicit global analysis of tradeoffs between carbon stocks and current crop yields. The difference among regions is striking. For example, for each unit of land cleared, the tropics lose nearly two times as much carbon (∼120 tons·ha −1 vs. ∼63 tons·ha −1 ) and produce less than one-half the annual crop yield compared with temperate regions (1.71 tons·ha −1 ·y −1 vs. 3.84 tons·ha −1 ·y −1 ). Therefore, newly cleared land in the tropics releases nearly 3 tons of carbon for every 1 ton of annual crop yield compared with a similar area cleared in the temperate zone. By factoring crop yield into the analysis, we specify the tradeoff between carbon stocks and crops for all areas where crops are currently grown and thereby, substantially enhance the spatial resolution relative to previous regional estimates. Particularly in the tropics, emphasis should be placed on increasing yields on existing croplands rather than clearing new lands. Our high-resolution approach can be used to determine the net effect of local land use decisions.cropland expansion | deforestation | greenhouse gases | ecosystem services | land use change

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“…Cultivation of forest vegetation has more pronounced effects on the local climate than sparse vegetation (Fig. 4) because forested areas generally have a lower albedo, higher vegetative cover and leaf area index, and higher maximum transpiration rates than most shrub and grass ecosystems (Bonan, 2002;West et al, 2011). The total atmospheric carbon involved in the photosynthesis by shrubs to generate the same formula unit of oxygen was the most, as living organisms depend on chlorophyll content for the conversion of light energy into chemical free energy (Gest, 1993).…”

Section: Effects Of Gfgp On Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The tradeoff and synergy between ecosystem services in the Grain-for-Green areas in Northern Shaanxi, China

Jia

Feng

et al. 2014

Ecological Indicators

328

162

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a b s t r a c tAs an important part of the strategy of Western development, the Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP) was initiated to protect the environment and mitigate disasters. Ecosystem services and their dynamics are considered emerging features of ecological quality and the change in direction by many scholars and practitioners. Extending from ecosystem services (ESs) modeling, we propose a simple and feasible framework for quantitatively assessing the benefits and equilibrium of the consequences of the GFGP. Our starting evaluation shows that ESs has changed dramatically in the GFGP area. By fitting pair-wise ESs' spatial concordances at the grid-cell level, we have revealed the tradeoffs between provisioning and regulating services and the synergies between the regulating services. The analysis of the variability of the relationship between ESs on different land cover types clearly identifies the vegetation that has produced exceptionally strong ESs. Our findings suggest that quantifying the interactions between ESs may improve the ecosystem-based management practices and support policy-making to address the challenges of the sustainable use of natural resources. The framework designed for regional-scale analysis can help in clearly understanding the interrelations of ESs and make natural resources related decisions more effective and efficient, although this framework still needs to move beyond these fundamental and illustrative analyses to more fully explain the synergies and tradeoffs.

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An alternative approach for quantifying climate regulation by ecosystems

Cited by 77 publications

References 44 publications

Climate-regulation services of natural and agricultural ecoregions of the Americas

Climate-regulation services of natural and agricultural ecoregions of the Americas

Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land

The tradeoff and synergy between ecosystem services in the Grain-for-Green areas in Northern Shaanxi, China

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