Economic efficiency and targeting of the African Great Green Wall

Mirzabaev, Alisher; Sacandé, M.; Motlagh, Farinaz; Shyrokaya, Anastasiya; Martucci, Antonio

doi:10.1038/s41893-021-00801-8

Cited by 62 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Such positive pattern can be an inspiring example of ecosystem restoration in action, especially with the recent launch of the United Nations decade on Ecosystem Restoration (https://www.decadeonrestoration.org). Our results suggest that along most of the GGW, vegetation is growing that can possibly then help ecosystems to become more healthier, improving livelihood and wellbeing 33 , food security 37 , ending poverty 32 , combating climate change and biodiversity loss, and planting the seeds of peace.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Is the African Great Green Wall greening? Some positive signs from a 20-years’ time-series of satellite observations

Giuliani

Lucas

2022

Preprint

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Land degradation has been recognized as a critical issue requiring urgent actions to cope with climate change and biodiversity loss impacts. The Sahel is probably among the most severely affected region in the World by land degradation, impacting many ecosystem services that are critical for wellbeing and livelihoods. In response to this issue, 11 countries have decided, in 2007, to create the Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative, an ambitious land-restoration program to mitigate the effects of land degradation as well as reducing poverty and improving population livelihoods. Despite initial positive results, the project has difficulties to reach its key objectives. Among the primary obstacles, effective and efficient monitoring, reporting, and verification mechanism has been identified. Here, we used a 20-year satellite derived annual time-series of vegetation biomass estimates to investigate the evolution of the entire GGW. Findings suggest that vegetation biomass has increased of about 22% in the region between 2007 and 2020; almost all countries have significative positive trends in above-ground biomass with noticeable differences between countries; however, precipitation patterns have not yet significantly changed. Results indicate that using satellite EO data can be a valid complement to provide consistent, reliable, timely and continuous information on the GGW.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Is the African Great Green Wall greening? Some positive signs from a 20-years’ time-series of satellite observations

Giuliani

Lucas

2022

Preprint

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“…Although previous studies suggest that future climate change will further exacerbate regional water stress in the drylands of northern China (Liu et al, 2020), we did not consider future climate change shifts in restoration potential and ecosystem productivity when calculating vegetation growth potential. If climate change is considered, the potential for growth of ecological restoration bene ts will be limited in future scenarios, with possible consequences for ecosystem redegradation (Mirzabaev et al, 2022). Nevertheless, these limitations have no impact on our main ndings.…”

Section: Limitations and Prospectivementioning

confidence: 87%

“…planting a trillion trees(Goymer et al, 2018;Mirzabaev et al, 2022). However, planting trees in drylands usually leads to the consumption of water resources.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning a water-constrained ecological restoration pattern to enhance landscape sustainability in drylands

Wang

Liu

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Context: Ecological restoration is an important approach to improve landscape sustainability. However, ecological restoration in drylandsis strongly limited by water resources. Therefore, a technical route for ecological restoration in drylandsthat creates sustainable landscapes based on those water constraintsis needed. Objectives:In this study, we develop a spatially explicit frameworknamed "Constraint - Pattern - Benefit" to plan ecological restoration patterns in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, to demonstrate its applicability to sustainable landscape planning in drylands. Method: Based on a prediction of the ecosystem service (ES) increase under limited evapotranspiration as a water constraint, we constructed 5 landscape sustainability-related strategies with 100 ecological restoration scenarios, which considering fragmentation of restoration locations, distance to city, water consumption, and the allocation scale to determine the spatial arrangement of ecological restoration. Results: First, the ES increase potential of ecological restoration under water constraints is distributed in the center of Inner Mongolia. The multiple-objective scenario simultaneously achieves 59.1% water yield, 74.2% soil conservation, 57.2% sand fixation, and 52.8% carbon sequestration with 50% restoredlandscape. Second, considering the indicators of fragmentation, water consumption, and distance to city decreases the restored landscape fragmentation from 0.44 to 0.26, improves the restoration efficiency by 14.41%, and increases the beneficiary population by 35.5%, respectively. Third, the downscaling of the restoration area allocation can further increase the ES realization efficiency, which is on average 4.8% higher at the city scale than at the provincial scale. Conclusions: The technical route comprehensively considersnot only water constraints but also sustainability indicators such as ecological services and human benefits. Moreover, this approach focuses on the sustainable effect of the spatial arrangement on dryland landscapesat different scales, which provides methodological support for improving the sustainability of drylands.

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“…The African Green Wall ( figure 2 e ) is one example of such megaengineering that aims at creating a living barrier to the expansion of the Sahara desert. Here too both human and climatic factors are equally relevant; and despite the potential promise, costs are high and climate and human factors interact [ 109 ]. A similar situation is to be found when dealing with large-scale management of marine ecosystems.…”

Section: Biodiversity Adaptation and Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years

Solé

Levin

2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Global warming, habitat loss and overexploitation of limited resources are leading to alarming biodiversity declines. Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems that display multiple alternative states and can shift from one to another in abrupt ways. Some of these tipping points have been identified and predicted by mathematical and computational models. Moreover, multiple scales are involved and potential mitigation or intervention scenarios are tied to particular levels of complexity, from cells to human–environment coupled systems. In dealing with a biosphere where humans are part of a complex, endangered ecological network, novel theoretical and engineering approaches need to be considered. At the centre of most research efforts is biodiversity, which is essential to maintain community resilience and ecosystem services. What can be done to mitigate, counterbalance or prevent tipping points? Using a 30-year window, we explore recent approaches to sense, preserve and restore ecosystem resilience as well as a number of proposed interventions (from afforestation to bioengineering) directed to mitigate or reverse ecosystem collapse. The year 2050 is taken as a representative future horizon that combines a time scale where deep ecological changes will occur and proposed solutions might be effective. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.

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Economic efficiency and targeting of the African Great Green Wall

Cited by 62 publications

References 33 publications

Is the African Great Green Wall greening? Some positive signs from a 20-years’ time-series of satellite observations

Is the African Great Green Wall greening? Some positive signs from a 20-years’ time-series of satellite observations

Planning a water-constrained ecological restoration pattern to enhance landscape sustainability in drylands

Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years

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