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| 2. |
- Bayer, Anita D., et al.
(author)
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Uncertainties in the land-use flux resulting from land-use change reconstructions and gross land transitions
- 2017
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In: Earth System Dynamics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 2190-4979 .- 2190-4987. ; 8:1, s. 91-111
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Land-use and land-cover (LUC) changes are a key uncertainty when attributing changes in measured atmospheric CO2 concentration to its sinks and sources and must also be much better understood to determine the possibilities for land-based climate change mitigation, especially in the light of human demand on other land-based resources. On the spatial scale typically used in terrestrial ecosystem models (0.5 or 1°) changes in LUC over time periods of a few years or more can include bidirectional changes on the sub-grid level, such as the parallel expansion and abandonment of agricultural land (e.g. in shifting cultivation) or cropland-grassland conversion (and vice versa). These complex changes between classes within a grid cell have often been neglected in previous studies, and only net changes of land between natural vegetation cover, cropland and pastures accounted for, mainly because of a lack of reliable high-resolution historical information on gross land transitions, in combination with technical limitations within the models themselves. In the present study we applied a state-of-The-Art dynamic global vegetation model with a detailed representation of croplands and carbon-nitrogen dynamics to quantify the uncertainty in terrestrial ecosystem carbon stocks and fluxes arising from the choice between net and gross representations of LUC. We used three frequently applied global, one recent global and one recent European LUC datasets, two of which resolve gross land transitions, either in Europe or in certain tropical regions. When considering only net changes, land-use-Transition uncertainties (expressed as 1 standard deviation around decadal means of four models) in global carbon emissions from LUC (ELUC) are ±0.19, ±0.66 and ±0.47gCa1 in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, respectively, or between 14 and 39% LUC. Carbon stocks at the end of the 20th century vary by ±11 PgC for vegetation and ±37PgC for soil C due to the choice of LUC reconstruction, i.e. around 3% of the respective C pools. Accounting for sub-grid (gross) land conversions significantly increased the effect of LUC on global and European carbon stocks and fluxes, most noticeably enhancing global cumulative ELUC by 33PgC(1750-2014) and entailing a significant reduction in carbon stored in vegetation, although the effect on soil C stocks was limited. Simulations demonstrated that assessments of historical carbon stocks and fluxes are highly uncertain due to the choice of LUC reconstruction and that the consideration of different contrasting LUC reconstructions is needed to account for this uncertainty. The analysis of gross, in addition to net, land-use changes showed that the full complexity of gross land-use changes is required in order to accurately predict the magnitude of LUC change emissions. This introduces technical challenges to process-based models and relies on extensive information regarding historical land-use transitions.
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| 3. |
- Bergkvist, John, et al.
(author)
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Modelling managed forest ecosystems in Sweden : An evaluation from the stand to the regional scale
- 2023
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In: Ecological Modelling. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3800. ; 477
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Incorporation of a forest management module in the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS has allowed the study and predictions of management treatment effects on the carbon cycle and on forest ecosystem structure. In this study, LPJ-GUESS is evaluated at the regional scale against observational data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory. Simulated standing volume is compared against observations for the four most common forest types in the country. Furthermore, eddy-covariance flux measurements from the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) are used to evaluate model predictions of net ecosystem exchange (NEE), gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Reco) at the site scale. The model results suggest an adequate representation of standing volume in monocultures of Norway spruce and Scots pine for regional simulations in southern and central Sweden, after an updated parameterization of the species. For northern Sweden, the standing volume in Norway spruce monocultures was overestimated with the updated parameter values. At the stand scale, the model produced mixed results for carbon fluxes when evaluated against eddy-covariance data for two sites, one in central and one in southern Sweden. The interannual variation of GPP was well captured for the central Swedish site, but the modelled average GPP for the period 2015–2019 was overestimated by 9%. For the southern Swedish site, GPP was underestimated by 15% for the corresponding period and the simulated interannual variation was half of the observed. The seasonal estimates of modelled net ecosystem exchange (NEE) deviated from observations and the simulated standing volume was underestimated by 25% for both sites. The results highlight further potential to perform species-specific calibration to capture latitudinal gradients in key ecosystem properties, and to incorporate additional characteristics of site quality which could benefit model accuracy at the scale of individual forest stands, both regarding simulated carbon fluxes and forest stand variables.
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| 4. |
- Blanco, Victor, et al.
(author)
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The effect of forest owner decision-making, climatic change and societal demands on land-use change and ecosystem service provision in Sweden
- 2017
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In: Ecosystem Services. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-0416. ; 23, s. 174-208
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The uncertain effects of climatic change and changing demands for ecosystem services on the distribution of forests and their levels of service provision require assessments of future land-use change, ecosystem service provision, and how ecosystem service demands may be met. We present CRAFTY-Sweden, an agent-based, land-use model that incorporates land owner behaviour and decision-making in modelling future ecosystem service provision in the Swedish forestry sector. Future changes were simulated under scenarios of socio-economic and climatic change between 2010 and 2100. The simulations indicate that the influence of climatic change (on land productivities) may be less important than that of socio-economic change or behavioural differences. Simulations further demonstrate that the variability in land owner and societal behaviour has a substantial role in determining the direction and impact of land-use change. The results indicate a sizeable increase in timber harvesting in coming decades, which together with a substantial decoupling between supply and demand for forest ecosystem services highlights the challenge of continuously meeting demands for ecosystem services over long periods of time. There is a clear need for model applications of this kind to better understand the variation in ecosystem service provision in the forestry sector, and other associated land-use changes.
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| 5. |
- Blanke, Jan Hendrik, et al.
(author)
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Assessing the impact of changes in land-use intensity and climate on simulated trade-offs between crop yield and nitrogen leaching
- 2017
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In: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-8809. ; 239, s. 385-398
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this study, a global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) is forced with spatial information (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS) 2 level) of land-use intensity change in the form of nitrogen (N) fertilization derived from a model chain which informed the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact (CAPRI) model. We analysed the combined role of climate change and land-use intensity change for trade-offs between agricultural yield and N leaching in the European Union under two plausible scenarios up until 2040. Furthermore, we assessed both driver importance and uncertainty in future trends based on an alternative land-use intensity dataset derived from an integrated assessment model. LPJ-GUESS simulated an increase in wheat and maize yield but also N leaching for most regions when driven by changes in land-use intensity and climate under RCP 8.5. Under RCP 4.5, N leaching is reduced in 53% of the regions while there is a trade-off in crop productivity. The most important factors influencing yield were CO2 (wheat) and climate (maize), but N application almost equaled these in importance. For N leaching, N application was the most important factor, followed by climate. Therefore, using a constant N application dataset in the absence of future projections has a substantial effect on simulated ecosystem responses, especially for maize yield and N leaching. This study is a first assessment of future N leaching and yield responses based on projections of climate and land-use intensity. It further highlights the importance of accounting for changes in future N applications and land-use intensity in general when evaluating environmental impacts over long time periods.
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| 6. |
- Blanke, Jan Hendrik, et al.
(author)
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Effect of climate data on simulated carbon and nitrogen balances for Europe
- 2016
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In: Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences. - 2169-8953. ; 121:5, s. 1352-1371
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this study, we systematically assess the spatial variability in carbon and nitrogen balance simulations related to the choice of global circulation models (GCMs), representative concentration pathways (RCPs), spatial resolutions, and the downscaling methods used as calculated with LPJ-GUESS. We employed a complete factorial design and performed 24 simulations for Europe with different climate input data sets and different combinations of these four factors. Our results reveal that the variability in simulated output in Europe is moderate with 35.6%–93.5% of the total variability being common among all combinations of factors. The spatial resolution is the most important factor among the examined factors, explaining 1.5%–10.7% of the total variability followed by GCMs (0.3%–7.6%), RCPs (0%–6.3%), and downscaling methods (0.1%–4.6%). The higher-order interactions effect that captures nonlinear relations between the factors and random effects is pronounced and accounts for 1.6%–45.8% to the total variability. The most distinct hot spots of variability include the mountain ranges in North Scandinavia and the Alps, and the Iberian Peninsula. Based on our findings, we advise to conduct the application of models such as LPJ-GUESS at a reasonably high spatial resolution which is supported by the model structure. There is no notable gain in simulations of ecosystem carbon and nitrogen stocks and fluxes from using regionally downscaled climate in preference to bias-corrected, bilinearly interpolated CMIP5 projections.
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| 7. |
- Blanke, Jan, et al.
(author)
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Implications of accounting for management intensity on carbon and nitrogen balances of European grasslands
- 2018
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In: PLoS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 13:8
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- European managed grasslands are amongst the most productive in the world. Besides temperature and the amount and timing of precipitation, grass production is also highly controlled by applications of nitrogen fertilizers and land management to sustain a high productivity. Since management characteristics of pastures vary greatly across Europe, land-use intensity and their projections are critical input variables in earth system modeling when examining and predicting the effects of increasingly intensified agricultural and livestock systems on the environment. In this study, we aim to improve the representation of pastures in the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-GUESS. This is done by incorporating daily carbon allocation for grasses as a foundation to further implement daily land management routines and land-use intensity data into the model to discriminate between intensively and extensively used regions. We further compare our new simulations with leaf area index observations, reported regional grassland productivity, and simulations conducted with the vegetation model ORCHIDEE-GM. Additionally, we analyze the implications of including pasture fertilization and daily management compared to the standard version of LPJ-GUESS. Our results demonstrate that grassland productivity cannot be adequately captured without including land-use intensity data in form of nitrogen applications. Using this type of information improved spatial patterns of grassland productivity significantly compared to standard LPJ-GUESS. In general, simulations for net primary productivity, net ecosystem carbon balance and nitrogen leaching were considerably increased in the extended version. Finally, the adapted version of LPJ-GUESS, driven with projections of climate and land-use intensity, simulated an increase in potential grassland productivity until 2050 for several agro-climatic regions, most notably for the Mediterranean North, the Mediterranean South, the Atlantic Central and the Atlantic South.
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| 8. |
- Eckes-Shephard, Annemarie, et al.
(author)
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State-of-the-art capabilities in LPJ-GUESS
- 2022
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- LPJ-GUESS is an advanced DGVM including detailed forest demography and management, croplands, wetlands, specialised arctic processes, emissions of nonCO2 GHGs and a highly flexible land-use change scheme which tracks transitions between different land-uses. It is the vegetation component of the EC-Earth CMIP6 ESM, the RCA-GUESS regional ESM, and also has a European mode operating at tree species level.
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| 9. |
- Engström, Kerstin, et al.
(author)
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Impacts of climate mitigation strategies in the energy sector on global land use and carbon balance
- 2017
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In: Earth System Dynamics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 2190-4979 .- 2190-4987. ; 8:3, s. 773-799
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit damage to the global economy climate-change-induced and secure the livelihoods of future generations requires ambitious mitigation strategies. The introduction of a global carbon tax on fossil fuels is tested here as a mitigation strategy to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations and radiative forcing. Taxation of fossil fuels potentially leads to changed composition of energy sources, including a larger relative contribution from bioenergy. Further, the introduction of a mitigation strategy reduces climate-change-induced damage to the global economy, and thus can indirectly affect consumption patterns and investments in agricultural technologies and yield enhancement. Here we assess the implications of changes in bioenergy demand as well as the indirectly caused changes in consumption and crop yields for global and national cropland area and terrestrial biosphere carbon balance. We apply a novel integrated assessment modelling framework, combining three previously published models (a climate-economy model, a socio-economic land use model and an ecosystem model). We develop reference and mitigation scenarios based on the narratives and key elements of the shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). Taking emissions from the land use sector into account, we find that the introduction of a global carbon tax on the fossil fuel sector is an effective mitigation strategy only for scenarios with low population development and strong sustainability criteria (SSP1 Taking the green road). For scenarios with high population growth, low technological development and bioenergy production the high demand for cropland causes the terrestrial biosphere to switch from being a carbon sink to a source by the end of the 21st century.
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| 10. |
- Gregor, Konstantin, et al.
(author)
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Trade-Offs for Climate-Smart Forestry in Europe Under Uncertain Future Climate
- 2022
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In: Earth's Future. - 2328-4277. ; 10:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Forests mitigate climate change by storing carbon and reducing emissions via substitution effects of wood products. Additionally, they provide many other important ecosystem services (ESs), but are vulnerable to climate change; therefore, adaptation is necessary. Climate-smart forestry combines mitigation with adaptation, whilst facilitating the provision of many ESs. This is particularly challenging due to large uncertainties about future climate. Here, we combined ecosystem modeling with robust multi-criteria optimization to assess how the provision of various ESs (climate change mitigation, timber provision, local cooling, water availability, and biodiversity habitat) can be guaranteed under a broad range of climate futures across Europe. Our optimized portfolios contain 29% unmanaged forests, and implicate a successive conversion of 34% of coniferous to broad-leaved forests (11% vice versa). Coppices practically vanish from Southern Europe, mainly due to their high water requirement. We find the high shares of unmanaged forests necessary to keep European forests a carbon sink while broad-leaved and unmanaged forests contribute to local cooling through biogeophysical effects. Unmanaged forests also pose the largest benefit for biodiversity habitat. However, the increased shares of unmanaged and broad-leaved forests lead to reductions in harvests. This raises the question of how to meet increasing wood demands without transferring ecological impacts elsewhere or enhancing the dependence on more carbon-intensive industries. Furthermore, the mitigation potential of forests depends on assumptions about the decarbonization of other industries and is consequently crucially dependent on the emission scenario. Our findings highlight that trade-offs must be assessed when developing concrete strategies for climate-smart forestry.
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