Land management: data availability and process understanding for global change studies |
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| Authors: | Karl‐Heinz Erb Sebastiaan Luyssaert Patrick Meyfroidt Julia Pongratz Axel Don Silvia Kloster Tobias Kuemmerle Tamara Fetzel Richard Fuchs Martin Herold Helmut Haberl Chris D Jones Erika Marín‐Spiotta Ian McCallum Eddy Robertson Verena Seufert Steffen Fritz Aude Valade Andrew Wiltshire Albertus J Dolman |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute of Social Ecology Vienna (SEC), Alpen‐Adria Universitaet Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz, Vienna, Austria;2. LSCE‐IPSL CEA‐CNRS‐UVSQ, Gif‐sur‐Yvette, France;3. Department of Ecological Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;4. Georges Lema?tre Center for Earth and Climate Research, Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain‐la‐Neuve, Belgium;5. F.R.S.‐FNRS, Brussels, Belgium;6. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany;7. Thünen‐Institute of Climate‐Smart Agriculture, Braunschweig, Germany;8. Geography Department, Humboldt‐University Berlin, Berlin, Germany;9. Integrative Research Institute on Transformations in Human‐Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt‐University Berlin, Berlin, Germany;10. Department of Earth Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;11. Laboratory of Geoinformation Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands;12. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK;13. Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, Madison, WI, USA;14. Ecosystems Services & Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria;15. Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC, Canada;16. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, IPSL‐CNRS‐UPMC, Paris, France |
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| Abstract: | In the light of daunting global sustainability challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and food security, improving our understanding of the complex dynamics of the Earth system is crucial. However, large knowledge gaps related to the effects of land management persist, in particular those human‐induced changes in terrestrial ecosystems that do not result in land‐cover conversions. Here, we review the current state of knowledge of ten common land management activities for their biogeochemical and biophysical impacts, the level of process understanding and data availability. Our review shows that ca. one‐tenth of the ice‐free land surface is under intense human management, half under medium and one‐fifth under extensive management. Based on our review, we cluster these ten management activities into three groups: (i) management activities for which data sets are available, and for which a good knowledge base exists (cropland harvest and irrigation); (ii) management activities for which sufficient knowledge on biogeochemical and biophysical effects exists but robust global data sets are lacking (forest harvest, tree species selection, grazing and mowing harvest, N fertilization); and (iii) land management practices with severe data gaps concomitant with an unsatisfactory level of process understanding (crop species selection, artificial wetland drainage, tillage and fire management and crop residue management, an element of crop harvest). Although we identify multiple impediments to progress, we conclude that the current status of process understanding and data availability is sufficient to advance with incorporating management in, for example, Earth system or dynamic vegetation models in order to provide a systematic assessment of their role in the Earth system. This review contributes to a strategic prioritization of research efforts across multiple disciplines, including land system research, ecological research and Earth system modelling. |
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| Keywords: | data availability earth system models global land‐use data sets land management land‐cover modification process understanding |
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