| 1. |
- Liu, Jianguo, et al.
(författare)
-
Spillover systems in a telecoupled Anthropocene : typology, methods, and governance for global sustainability
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 1877-3435. ; 33, s. 58-69
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The world has become increasingly telecoupled through distant flows of information, energy, people, organisms, goods, and matter. Recent advances suggest that telecouplings such as trade and species invasion often generate spillover systems with profound effects. To untangle spillover complexity, we make the first attempt to develop a typology of spillover systems based on six criteria: flows from and to sending and receiving systems, distances from sending and receiving systems, types of spillover effects, sizes of spillover systems, roles of agents in spillover systems, and the origin of spillover systems. Furthermore, we highlight a portfolio of qualitative and quantitative methods for detecting the often-overlooked spillover systems. To effectively govern spillover systems for global sustainability, we propose an overall goal (minimize negative and maximize positive spillover effects) and three general principles (fairness, responsibility, and capability).
|
|
| 2. |
- Mechiche-alami, Altaaf, et al.
(författare)
-
Agricultural land acquisitions unlikely to address the food security needs of African countries
- 2021
-
Ingår i: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-750X. ; 141
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent years, Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA), direct land tenure changes have been gaining momentum in developing countries. In this study, we evaluate the potential extent to which agricultural land deals in Africa are able to address the host countries’ food security needs, a commonly cited motivation for their establishment. First, we develop a framework to evaluate the priority food security needs of 38 African countries in 2000 based on indicators of food availability, accessibility, stability, and utilization. Second, we estimate whether the crops from land deals would be sold on export or local food markets based on the origin of investments (domestic, foreign or mixed), type of investors (eg. agribusiness, finance, or government) and the intended crops (eg. food, cash crop, or biofuel). This enables us to estimate how likely the investment is to improve in-country food security, versus serving other purposes (e.g., speculation, enclosure of natural resources). Third, we account for the characteristics of the locations where the deals happen (population density, land cover and distance to markets) in order to estimate the level of conflict and deforestation that they could exacerbate. We find that LSLA are only likely to address the identified food security needs of 7 countries. LSLA are also at risk of increasing land pressures and conflicts or deforestation on 83% of the acquired area, including in countries where they could meet food security needs. We also find that the more productive lands are most often allocated to flex crops, while food crops are produced on more marginal lands. We thus argue that even when their purpose is agricultural production, most LSLA are not likely to improve food security; rather, they often serve the financial interests of transnational companies and local elites with the support of host governments. Finally, we recommend agricultural investments to be elaborated in consultation with local communities and marginalized groups to sustainably support their socio-ecological systems.
|
|
| 3. |
- Mechiche-Alami, Altaaf, et al.
(författare)
-
Agricultural productivity in relation to climate and cropland management in West Africa
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 10
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The climate of West Africa is expected to become more arid due to increased temperature and uncertain rainfall regimes, while its population is expected to grow faster than the rest of the world. As such, increased demand for food will likely coincide with declines in agricultural production in a region where severe undernutrition already occurs. Here, we attempt to discriminate between the impacts of climate and other factors (e.g. land management/degradation) on crop production across West Africa using satellite remote sensing. We identify trends in the land surface phenology and climate of West African croplands between 2000 and 2018. Using the combination of a an attribution framework and residual trend anlaysis, we discriminate between climate and other impacts on crop productivity. The combined effect of rainfall, land surface temperature and solar radiation explains approximately 40% of the variation in cropland productivity over West Africa at the 95% significance level. The largest proportions of croplands with greening trends were observed in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, and the largest proportions with browning trends were in Nigeria, The Gambia and Benin. Climate was responsible for 52% of the greening trends and 25% of the browning trends. Within the other driving factors, changes in phenology explained 18% of the greening and 37% of the browning trends across the region, the use of inputs and irrigation explained 30% of the greening trends and land degradation 38% of the browning trends. These findings have implications for adaptation policies as we map out areas in need of improved land management practices and those where it has proven to be successful.
|
|
| 4. |
- Mechiche-Alami, Altaaf, et al.
(författare)
-
Evaluating the scaling potential of sustainable land management projects in the Sahelian Great Green Wall countries
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9318 .- 1748-9326. ; 17:8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative aims at combatting land degradation while achieving socio-economic development across the Sahel through a mosaic of sustainable land management (SLM) and restoration practices. As the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the main funding mechanism for land degradation neutrality related projects, we have analyzed its previous SLM projects in four pilot countries in an effort to assess their capacity to foster scaling of interventions and fast track progress towards the GGW objectives. We developed a literature-based scaling evaluation framework and scoring methods to harmonize the GEF agency based project ratings in terms of performance and persistence along seven evaluation domains. We found that projects perform better over time particularly in terms of monitoring, financing and resilience to shocks but are overall only moderately likely to achieve benefits persistent over time, which is necessary to allow for the scaling of interventions. While these efforts should be maintained and further pursued, we also recommend special attention to be placed on a number of interventions that are often less successful or ignored by projects such as enforcing mechanisms for new SLM regulations, empowering vulnerable groups and ensuring sufficient capacity and finances for sustaining achievements even during periods of political or climatic instability.
|
|
| 5. |
- Mechiche-Alami, Altaaf
(författare)
-
Food security in a changing climate : The role of cropland intensification and land acquisitions across Africa
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Food security is one of the world’s greatest challenges. The current food system shows an entanglement across the globe which means that local farmers reliant on subsistence agriculture no longer operate in isolation of larger-scale processes within the global economy or the changing biophysical system of the planet. The persistently high number of undernourished people, volatile food prices, increasing population, expected land scarcity and negative impacts of climate change on food production all contribute to a sense of urgency that future food supply in Africa will be threatened. The current global response is increasing food production by improving the productivity of smallholders in developing countries. In recent years this has been achieved through input subsidy programs aiming at agricultural intensification and to some extent Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA).This thesis investigates the challenges posed to achieving food security for all, particularly by national policies supporting LSLA and agricultural intensification programs by evaluating the local food security and environmental implications across African countries. The thesis consists of four papers framed within changes to the global food system and analyzed through the telecoupling framework. Each of the papers used separate methods, from network analysis (Paper I), GIS and probablilistic assessment (Paper II), remote sensing and residual trend analysis (Paper III) and modeling of farming systems with LPJ-GUESS (Paper IV).Paper I assesses the evolution of global LSLA by identifying three different phases (2000-2007,2008-2010,2011-2015) related to global economic changes. It shows how African lands were consistently targeted by foreign investments based on the assumption that they could improve food security in the continent and foster economic development. Paper II demonstrates that LSLA in Africa are in reality mostly targeting export markets and seldom tackle the food security needs of the countries where they occur. At the same time, they risk increasing land pressures and deforestation rates and fueling conflicts, further destabilizing food security.Paper III shows that between 2000 and 2018, only 15% of croplands in West Africa witnessed significant trends in terms of productivity. These trends were mostly attributed to climatic factors in the Sahel, but increasingly to changes in cropping practices (inputs, irrigation and land rehabilitation) throughout the region. Assuming the widespread adoption of intensification measures (elimination of fallow periods and higher fertilizer use) in North Africa, Paper IV shows that rainfed wheat yields could increase by up to 25%, but would be accompanied by dramatically higher rates of nitrogen pollution with up to a six-fold increase in leaching and seven-fold increase in N2O emissions depending on the agro-ecological zone. Finally, the thesis concludes with reflections on the dangers of prioritizing productivist policies, which I argue are unable to tackle the more pressing food accessibility issues across Africa and benefiting transnational corporations and national elites at the expense of the environment and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. It also points to agroecology as a potential alternative for sustainably improving food security in the continent.
|
|
| 6. |
- Mechiche-alami, Altaaf, et al.
(författare)
-
Transnational land acquisitions beyond the food and financial crises
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 14:8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA) in resource-rich countries came to global attention after the food and financial crises of 2008. Previous research has assessed the magnitude of these land investments in terms of land areas acquired. In this study, we analyze the trends in the evolution of LSLA by framing the latter as virtual land trade network with land transactions occurring between 2000 and 2015, in order to shed light on the development and evolution of this system. Based on an index we introduce to represent both the number of countries and size of deals, we discover three main phases of trade activity: a steady increase from 2000 until 2007 (Phase 1) followed by a peak coinciding with the food and financial crises between 2008 and 2010 (Phase 2) and concluded by a decline from 2011 to 2015 (Phase 3). We identify 73 countries that remained active in land trading during all three phases and form a core of land traders much larger than previously thought. Using network analysis methods, we group countries with similar trade patterns into categories of competitive, preferential, diversified, and occasional importers or exporters. Finally, in exploring the changes in investors and their interests in land throughout the phases, we attribute the evolution of LSLA to the different stages in the globalization and financialization of different industries. By showing that land investments seem fully integrated as investment strategies across industries we argue for the urgency of better regulation of LSLA so that they also benefit local populations without damaging the environment regardless of their primary purpose.
|
|
| 7. |
- O'byrne, David, et al.
(författare)
-
The Social Impacts of Sustainable Land Management in Great Green Wall Countries: An Evaluative Framework Based on the Capability Approach
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Land. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-445X. ; 11:3
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) is a pan-African program launched in 2007 to combat land degradation and bring about both ecological and socio-economic benefits in the Sahel. With projects in place on only one-fifth of the targeted land and uncertainty about the extent of positive impacts, there is a need for improved monitoring and evaluation of current projects to inform the design of future projects. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of socio-economic impacts, drawing on development theory, to relate investments in sustainable land management (SLM) to outcomes in terms of human well-being. We deploy a conceptual model, which draws on both the capability approach to human development and the sustainable livelihood framework. To contextualize the framework to the Sahel, we undertook a literature review of scientific studies of the facilitative social conditions and socio-economic impacts of SLM interventions in four countries: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Ethiopia. We further refined the framework by examining project evaluation reports of Global Environmental Facility (GEF)-funded SLM projects. Our analysis of GEF projects shows that current monitoring and evaluation pays only limited attention to achieved outcomes in terms of well-being. We briefly discuss the application of the framework to SLM interventions and make recommendations for how it should be operationalized, including recommending more comprehensive measurement of the well-being impacts of these projects.
|
|
