Key determinants of global land-use projections
Open accessAbstract
Land use is at the core of various sustainable development goals. Long-term climate foresight studies have structured their recent analyses around five socio-economic pathways (SSPs), with consistent storylines of future macroeconomic and societal developments; however, model quantification of these scenarios shows substantial heterogeneity in land-use projections. Here we build on a recently developed sensitivity approach to identify how future land use depends on six distinct socio-economic drivers (population, wealth, consumption preferences, agricultural productivity, land-use regulation, and trade) and their interactions. Spread across models arises mostly from diverging sensitivities to long-term drivers and from various representations of land-use regulation and trade, calling for reconciliation efforts and more empirical research. Most influential determinants for future cropland and pasture extent are population and agricultural efficiency. Furthermore, land-use regulation and consumption changes can play a key role in reducing both land use and food-security risks, and need to be central elements in sustainable development strategies.
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Most high-ranking models used for global food security analysis are part of large-scale integrated assessment tools also used for climate change, biodiversity and land use studies.
“most of the high-ranking models used for global food security analysis (Fig. 2b) are (part of) large-scale integrated assessment tools that are used for global climate change 65 , biodiversity 34 and land use 66 studies, among others.”
From A meta-analysis of projected global food demand and population at risk of hunger for the period 2010–2050 (2021) · cites this paper as [66]
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
van Dijk, M., Morley, T., Rau, M. L., & Saghai, Y. (2021) · Nature Food · doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00322-9 · Cited by 2,339 · see citing works
- Authors
- Stehfest, E., van Zeist, W.-J., Valin, H., Havlik, P., Popp, A., Kyle, P., Tabeau, A., Mason-D’Croz, D., Hasegawa, T., Bodirsky, B. L., Calvin, K., Doelman, J. C., Fujimori, S., Humpenöder, F., Lotze-Campen, H., van Meijl, H., & Wiebe, K.
- Affiliations
- Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NL)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT)
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (DE)
- Joint Global Change Research Institute (US)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- International Food Policy Research Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Stehfest, Elke
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2019-05-15
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 2166-2166
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6520344
- OpenAlex
- W2946090470
- Cited by
- 247
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 6
- FWCI
- 15.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) (acceptedVersion)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- IFPRI E-brary (International Food Policy Research Institute) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- International Food Policy Research Institute (International Food Policy Research Institute) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RENATE (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Kyoto University Research Information Repository (Kyoto University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RENATE (cc-by)
- Funders
- European Commission (HORIZON2020, 689150)
- Ministry of Environment
- Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
- Keywords
- land use projections, socioeconomic pathways, sensitivity analysis, cropland extent, population growth, agricultural productivity, land use regulation, international trade, consumption preferences, food security, climate change scenarios, model heterogeneity
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