Human impacts prior to the Industrial Revolution are not well constrained. We investigate whether the decline in global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 7–10 ppm in the late 1500s and early 1600s ...which globally lowered surface air temperatures by 0.15∘C, were generated by natural forcing or were a result of the large-scale depopulation of the Americas after European arrival, subsequent land use change and secondary succession. We quantitatively review the evidence for (i) the pre-Columbian population size, (ii) their per capita land use, (iii) the post-1492 population loss, (iv) the resulting carbon uptake of the abandoned anthropogenic landscapes, and then compare these to potential natural drivers of global carbon declines of 7–10 ppm. From 119 published regional population estimates we calculate a pre-1492 CE population of 60.5 million (interquartile range, IQR 44.8–78.2 million), utilizing 1.04 ha land per capita (IQR 0.98–1.11). European epidemics removed 90% (IQR 87–92%) of the indigenous population over the next century. This resulted in secondary succession of 55.8 Mha (IQR 39.0–78.4 Mha) of abandoned land, sequestering 7.4 Pg C (IQR 4.9–10.8 Pg C), equivalent to a decline in atmospheric CO2 of 3.5 ppm (IQR 2.3–5.1 ppm CO2). Accounting for carbon cycle feedbacks plus LUC outside the Americas gives a total 5 ppm CO2 additional uptake into the land surface in the 1500s compared to the 1400s, 47–67% of the atmospheric CO2 decline. Furthermore, we show that the global carbon budget of the 1500s cannot be balanced until large-scale vegetation regeneration in the Americas is included. The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth System in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution.
•Combines multiple methods estimating pre-Columbian population numbers.•Estimates European arrival in 1492 lead to 56 million deaths by 1600.•Large population reduction led to reforestation of 55.8 Mha and 7.4 Pg C uptake.•1610 atmospheric CO2 drop partly caused by indigenous depopulation of the Americas.•Humans contributed to Earth System changes before the Industrial Revolution.
•Six soil series were identified and mapped using LISS IV, Cartosat-I and DEM.•Storie index, parametric and Multi-criteria land evaluation methods compared.•MC-LSI was highly correlated with crop ...yield and performed better than others.•Village level ALUP were proposed by integrating soil, crop, and cadastral data.•Challenges and opportunities in ALUP in India were discussed.
Defining the relationship between soil characteristics and crop requirements must be the first step in planning future agriculture land use. The aim of the present study is to identify the constraints and potentials of major soils in a block of Telangana, India and evaluate them for crop suitability and propose agricultural land use plans (ALUP) at village level. Using IRS P6 LISS IV, Cartosat-I and DEM data, we identified and mapped six soil series through detailed soil survey. Soils varied in depth (<25 to>150 cm), texture, water holding capacity, hydraulic conductivity, pH, organic carbon and other inherent properties. We compared parametric, Storie index and multi-criteria land suitability evaluation (MC-LSE) methods for evaluating land suitability for pigeon pea, maize, cotton, groundnut and rice. The land suitability index (LSI) by the three methods varied for three soil series, but for one series, the methods produced similar results for cotton, maize and pigeon pea. The correlation of LSI with crop yield showed that MC-LSE performed better than other two methods. After analysing the LSE results, existing cropping pattern, potential and adaptability of alternate options through participatory interaction with farmers, ALUP for 19 villages of the study area were developed. Moreover, we also discuss the challenges and opportunities in proposing and implementing ALUP in India. The results of the present study will be helpful for farm managers for making the best use of soils based on their suitability. However, to demonstrate the applicability, practicability, and most importantly, the sustainability of proposed ALUP, coordinated implementation strategies are necessary.
We report results from a new survey of local residential land use regulatory regimes for nearly 2,500 primarily suburban communities across the United States. Key stylized facts are documented and ...compared to findings from a previous survey (Gyourko, Saiz, Summers, 2008). We are able to observe how the local regulatory environment has changed in over 800 communities in both samples. This represents the first consistent nationwide data documenting changes in residential land use regulation at the local jurisdictional level. Finally, we discuss how these changes can and should broaden the research questions for housing and urban economists investigating the local residential land use environment.
Recently, dramatic flood disasters have occurred incrementally in several regions of the world. Land-use change as one of the main affecting factors becomes a key component in flood risk management. ...This study strives to deal with quantifying how changes in land use to affect the dynamic evolution of flood vulnerability. The floodplains of Wuhan, which are located in the Yangtze River Basin, have been selected as an example. In this paper, we use GIS to gather different historical geometric data as sources of land-use information. By proposing the Simpsons-dominance index and location index to analyze the characteristics of land-use changes, and building a quantitative model to measure flood vulnerability, a series of flood vulnerability maps demonstrate differential flood vulnerability of floodplains of Wuhan in three inundation scenarios and four historical periods. Finally, the non-parametric correlation is used to reveal the interactive effect of land use and flood vulnerability. Based on this study, comprehensive flood disaster management strategies for land-use planning are proposed for government decision-makers to reduce the flood vulnerability of Wuhan in future.
We present the global general circulation model IPSL-CM5 developed to study the long-term response of the climate system to natural and anthropogenic forcings as part of the 5th Phase of the Coupled ...Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). This model includes an interactive carbon cycle, a representation of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry, and a comprehensive representation of aerosols. As it represents the principal dynamical, physical, and bio-geochemical processes relevant to the climate system, it may be referred to as an Earth System Model. However, the IPSL-CM5 model may be used in a multitude of configurations associated with different boundary conditions and with a range of complexities in terms of processes and interactions. This paper presents an overview of the different model components and explains how they were coupled and used to simulate historical climate changes over the past 150 years and different scenarios of future climate change. A single version of the IPSL-CM5 model (IPSL-CM5A-LR) was used to provide climate projections associated with different socio-economic scenarios, including the different Representative Concentration Pathways considered by CMIP5 and several scenarios from the Special Report on Emission Scenarios considered by CMIP3. Results suggest that the magnitude of global warming projections primarily depends on the socio-economic scenario considered, that there is potential for an aggressive mitigation policy to limit global warming to about two degrees, and that the behavior of some components of the climate system such as the Arctic sea ice and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation may change drastically by the end of the twenty-first century in the case of a no climate policy scenario. Although the magnitude of regional temperature and precipitation changes depends fairly linearly on the magnitude of the projected global warming (and thus on the scenario considered), the geographical pattern of these changes is strikingly similar for the different scenarios. The representation of atmospheric physical processes in the model is shown to strongly influence the simulated climate variability and both the magnitude and pattern of the projected climate changes.
•A Bayesian network approach have been proposed for on-site and off-site risk analysis, considering domino effects.•By adding decision and utility nodes, the proposed Bayesian network can be employed ...for multi-attribute decision analysis.
Land-use planning (LUP) has widely been employed as a protective safety measure in risk management of major hazard installations such as chemical plants. In the European Union countries, a majority of relevant work over the past years has been inspired by the Seveso II Directive. The inclusion of LUP in the Seveso II Directive has been with the aim of mitigating off-site damage of major accidents on public via setting criteria for (i) the identification of the location and layout of new installations, (ii) the development of existing installations, and (iii) the land developments in the vicinity of existing installations. We, in the present study, have proposed a methodology based on Bayesian network (BN) for cost-effective allocation of safety measures in chemical plants so that both internal and external risks could effectively be mitigated, particularly in compliance with the requirements of LUP. We first employed BN to calculate risks, and then extended the BN to a limited memory influence diagram using additional decision and utility nodes so that it can be used for multi-attribute decision analysis. The development and application of the methodology have been illustrated via fireproofing of a hypothetical fuel storage plant.
Participatory Rural Planning signposts what can work well and what should work differently in regard to participatory planning. The book takes rural Ireland as an empirical laboratory and explores ...the Irish experience at different spatial scales, from the village, through to the locality, the sub regional and the regional levels.
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•At national scale, 2/3 urbanization resulted in direct cropland losses and 37 % losses was of high-quality.•Higher-Tier cities accelerated losses but achieved lower high-quality ...ratio with mega-city urbanization mode.•Prominent high-quality ratio was examined in medium-Tier cities and village urbanization mode.•Town mode spared cropland more than village mode in higher Tier cities but was less obvious in lower-Tier cities.•Rigorous losses experienced in the newly 1st Tier cities but increasingly shifted to middle Tier cities since 2010.
Urbanization has widely known to directly consume swaths of cropland worldwide. Knowledge on what kinds of urbanization processes spared cropland is important for land use planning. This study offered insights on the impact of city level (city hierarchy: from the 1st to the 6th Tier cities) and urbanization modes (mega-city, city, town and village modes) on cropland losses through a first-ever continuous national survey on 345 prefectural level cities or above in mainland China from 2003 to 2016. We found that higher tier cities were associated with more direct and severe losses. Specifically, over 80 % of the recent urbanization formed on cropland in the 1st Tier cities, and the newly 1st Tier cities suffered the most rigorous losses. At national level, mega-city mode urbanization resulted in direct cropland losses (80 %) and the village mode was associated with prominent high-quality ratio (45 %). Town mode spared cropland more than village mode. However, ranking with urbanization mode was less obvious and even changed in the lower-Tier cities. At national scale, around 1.45 % of the total cropland area (approximately 2297 km² per year), including 1.06 % of high quality cropland area (approximately 852 km² per year), has been permanently lost. The most rapid cropland loss was in 2009 (3464 km2), and that of high quality cropland occurring in 2007 (1775 km2). Over 95 % cropland losses located in the east of the Hu line. Findings in this study called for target adaptive planning with full considerations of city hierarchy and urbanization mode. Particularly, land use policies to effective support land development in small towns can potentially relief pressure on cropland.
The growing environmental concerns and the prospect of irreversible climate change highlight the necessity for the rapid transformation from fossil-based economy to the modern circular bio-based ...economy. Yet the urgency of green transformation may lead to insufficient consideration of scientific concerns about the sustainability of accelerated biomass deployment, and the inherent complexity and uncertainty in the assessment present a challenge to policy makers, researchers, and industry. This review aims to provide a retrospect towards the status of biomass resources from the feedstock to conversion process, and end-use. Understanding the distribution and potential projections of major biomass types are also critical steps to ensuring sustainable supply chains. A novel indicator framework was further established for assessing the sustainability of biomass resources by integrating the environmental and social-economic dimensions. Different indicators are interdependently connected and vary significantly among the feedstock categories, land use types and management practices. All of which are important considerations of the criteria for systematic research in the future, understanding the alternative potential of biomass resources, providing important insights for accelerating the transition to bio-based economy, as well as policy regulation.
•A retrospect of biomass feedstocks, conversion approaches and final use.•Detailed classification, distribution and estimation methods of biomass feedstocks.•A novel indicator framework for sustainability assessment of biomass resources.•Challenges and prospects towards the achievement of sustainable bioeconomy.
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