Interacting effects of change in climate, human population, land use, and water use on biodiversity and ecosystem services

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Human population growth and resource use, mediated by changes in climate, land use, and water use, increasingly impact biodiversity and ecosystem services provision. However, impacts of these drivers on biodiversity and ecosystem services are rarely analyzed simultaneously and remain largely unknown. An emerging question is how science can improve the understanding of change in biodiversity and ecosystem service delivery and of potential feedback mechanisms of adaptive governance. We analyzed past and future change in drivers in south-central Sweden. We used the analysis to identify main research challenges and outline important research tasks. Since the 19th century, our study area has experienced substantial and interlinked changes; a 1.6°C temperature increase, rapid population growth, urbanization, and massive changes in land use and water use. Considerable future changes are also projected until the mid-21st century. However, little is known about the impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services so far, and this in turn hampers future projections of such effects. Therefore, we urge scientists to explore interdisciplinary approaches designed to investigate change in multiple drivers, underlying mechanisms, and interactions over time, including assessment and analysis of matching-scale data from several disciplines. Such a perspective is needed for science to contribute to adaptive governance by constantly improving the understanding of linked change complexities and their impacts.

The changing contribution of top‐down and bottom‐up limitation of mesopredators during 220 years of land use and climate change

“…For the scenarios of 2050, the 2010 land cover was also used, which can be considered a conservative model (Elmhagen et al . ).…”

“…The annual mean temperature in NDB is expected to increase by 1·6 °C until 2041–2070 (Elmhagen et al . ). The change in mean winter temperature has not been estimated, but we assumed an increase in winter temperature by 1·5 °C in each square from 2010 to 2050.…”

“…NDB has gone through substantial changes in potential drivers of fox density since the mid‐1800s (Elmhagen et al . ): lynx were eradicated in the early 1900s but is now recolonizing the area, the agrarian revolution has shifted the land use from subsistence to industrial agriculture and silviculture, and the yearly mean temperature has increased by 1·6 °C.…”

Dominant effect of increasing forest biomass on evapotranspiration: interpretations of movement in Budyko space

“…The productive forest standing volume has increased by 85 % since the first NFI took place in 1923 (KSLA, 2015). In Sweden, forest management is responsible for most changes in the abundance of coniferous and deciduous species (Elmhagen et al, 2015;Laudon et al, 2011). The forest data from the NFI here used quantifies the surface area of all types of land use (i.e.…”

“A shepherd has to invent”: Poetic analysis of social-ecological change in the cultural landscape of the central Spanish Pyrenees

“…When this work delves deeply into the cultural dimensions of landscape change, it illuminates potential social and cultural causes and consequences of these changes. Although researchers have explored how macro-level socioeconomic, demographic, and policy changes affect provisioning, regulating, and supporting ecosystem services (Nelson et al 2006, Elmhagen et al 2015, few studies have examined the impacts of these changes on local communities and cultural ecosystem services such as place attachment and identity (Iniesta-Arandia et al 2014, López-Santiago et al 2014, Szücs et al 2015.…”