Projected Land-Use Change Impacts on Ecosystem Services in the United States
Diana Cruz Shines light on how policies can alter land-use change and how critical this is to sustainability. Find a balance between maintaining ecosystem services (many of which are commodities) while also maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity (habitat). Land Use Changes can increase things like food production timber.. Carbon storage Reduced urban expansion for further forest cover Values Trade-Offs BCA 2 econometric models used to project the USs changes in land use to 2051 based on past land-use change characteristics (land parcels and economic returns). Meet the Authors: Andrew J. Plantinga Joshua J Lawler Erik Nelson
Stephen Polasky David J Lewis Lawler: School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195; Lewis: Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331; Nelson: Department of Economics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011; Platinga: Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106; Polasky: Department of Applied Economics and Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108; Withey: Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199; Helmers, Martinuzzi, Radeloff: SILVIS Laboratory, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of WisconsinMadison, Madison, WI 53706; and Pennington: World Wildlife Fund, Washington, DC 20090 John C. Withey David P Helmers Sebastin Martinuzzi Derric Pennington Volker C. Radeloff Ecosystem Services Provisioning services: Products obtained from ecosystems Ecosystem Services: the goods and services provided by nature that are of value to people Examples) Timber for housing Land for agriculture Changes in land use means changes in these services... My question: To which extent do these services become commodities? Valuation: Whats really necessary? TRADE-OFFS Much cropland is used to feed livestock for our burgers, expanding urban areas . at the expense of the biodiversity and well being of native grasslands, forests, or wetlands. Is habitat provision for wildlife valued over your new coffee table? Alternative Reference Scenarios
Description 1990s trend Continuing land-use change trends ( ) High Crop Demand 10% increase in crop prices every 5 years relative to 1990s This study uses baseline scenarios to model the projected land use change from 2001 to 2051. Alternative Reference (Baseline) Scenarios. Which one would effect the most changes to land use? 1st) assumes continuation of exogenous factors driving land during a 5 year period 2nd) increases the price of agricultural commodities (more reflective of our recent past esp ) Prediction: High Crop Demand will provide the most environmentally sound results. WHY? Results 1990s Trends: loss of cropland
High Crop Demand: cropland is projected to have a large increase RESULTS for BOTH: Rapid Urban Growth. Loss of range and pasture land. Large increase in food production under both scenarios. Increases in carbon storage and timber production too. Declines in habitat Alternative Policy Scenarios
Description Targeted Services Forest Incentives - $100/acre annual payment for converting land to forest - $100/acre annual tax for land taken out of forest Timber Production, carbon storage, habitat Natural Habitats $100/acre annual tax on land converted to cropland, pasture, or urban Habitat Urban Containment Not allowing land conversion to urban in nonmetropolitan counties Habitat, timber production, carbon storage, food production Alternative Policy Scenarios Land use on public land held constant Which incentive do you think would be the most effective in regards to the targeted service? Striking similarities between both scenarios so this graph is modeled after the 1990s trend specifically. Forest Incentive: at the expense of rangeland and cropland Most of the increase in forest area is the result of afforestation and, thus, requires large government expenditures on subsidies to landowners. largest positive effect on biomass carbon and timber production Natural Habitat: increase in rangeland at the expense of crops and pasture, but no change in forest land despite there being a tax on land leaving forest Urban Containment: reduces the amount of urban growth and results in slight increases in the other land-use types The urban containment policy is the only one of the three policies that alters the expansion of urban land in a meaningful way. ** Natural habitats policy has the greatest positive effect on habitat of any of the policy scenarios. 31% of the species gaining at least 10% in habitat area by 2051. Discussion Tradeoffs Valuation Monetary Metric BCA Positive Incentives
Penalties Difficult to establish soundpolicy advice The shift toward forest land increases the amount of carbon storage in biomass and timber production and generates a modest gain in carbon stored in soil. PROBLEMS WITH RETURNS. Tradeoffs Ex) A policy that subsidizes one land use ex) forest land indirectly raises the returns to other uses (reduces supply of cropland) Pricing ecosystem services to compare the value of changes to each ecosystem services. Controversial. Some services already have established monetary value ex) timber but how do you put a price on the value of the existence of wildlife? WHICH IS MORE EFFECTIVE?? Positive Incentives: Subsidies Penalties: Tax DEPENDS ON THE BASELINE SCENARIO CONDITIONS Ex) taxes arent always effective: deforestation taxes in the forest incentives have little impact because there is a limited amount of baseline deforestation whereas the subsidies for establishing new forests has a large effect because there is a large amount of agricultural land that can be converted to forest. Critique Land Management? Trends in Wildlife Habitat
Aside from structural things that made the paper difficult to digest. (Diagrams were not close enough to the text they belonged to). Jumped around a lot. Acknowledged but failed to address important changes in land management We would, for instance, expect more intensive farming practices in response to higher agricultural prices Specific species were chosen to evaluate are common and few of them are threatened or endangered. Does not adequately reflect the real-life scenario. Exogenous market and biophysical forces at play that interfere with land use (societal preferences, climate change). Although this particular paper doesnt cover all of them- it is important for policy makers to take as much into consideration as possible. Rather than predict future land use, this papers main focus remained on analyzing the effects of different land use policies through modeling. Policy interventions can alter, but such interventions will need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying environmentally detrimental land-use change trends. Picture with Caption Layout
Were not the only ones that require services from the environment. To what extent are these services necessities vs. commodities. Where do we draw the line and how much are we willing to change our lifestyles to accommodate the lives of other that inhabitants of the planet? Thinking in terms of necessity we take these for granted- we do not see the ecological damage firsthand- just the instant gratification of acquiring commodities.