Cited by 812Land Use and Ecosystem ServicesArchaeology and ancient environmental studiesSoil and Environmental Studies
The DOI matches its Crossref record; 138 of the 145 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 177 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.
Used planet: A global history
Open accessEllis, Erle C., Kaplan, Jed O., Fuller, Dorian Q., Vavrus, Steve, Klein Goldewijk, Kees, Verburg, Peter H.·2013·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Abstract
Human use of land has transformed ecosystem pattern and process across most of the terrestrial biosphere, a global change often described as historically recent and potentially catastrophic for both humanity and the biosphere. Interdisciplinary paleoecological, archaeological, and historical studies challenge this view, indicating that land use has been extensive and sustained for millennia in some regions and that recent trends may represent as much a recovery as an acceleration. Here we synthesize recent scientific evidence and theory on the emergence, history, and future of land use as a process transforming the Earth System and use this to explain why relatively small human populations likely caused widespread and profound ecological changes more than 3,000 y ago, whereas the largest and wealthiest human populations in history are using less arable land per person every decade. Contrasting two spatially explicit global reconstructions of land-use history shows that reconstructions incorporating adaptive changes in land-use systems over time, including land-use intensification, offer a more spatially detailed and plausible assessment of our planet's history, with a biosphere and perhaps even climate long ago affected by humans. Although land-use processes are now shifting rapidly from historical patterns in both type and scale, integrative global land-use models that incorporate dynamic adaptations in human–environment relationships help to advance our understanding of both past and future land-use changes, including their sustainability and potential global effects.
Overview
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Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
Land use has extensively transformed the terrestrial biosphere for millennia, not just recently, and land-use intensification is a pivotal process in global change history. Comparing HYDE and KK10 shows that incorporating adaptive intensification yields much earlier and more widespread significant land use, with implications for climate, ecosystems, and future sustainability.
Key findings
- HYDE assumes land use per capita remained approximately constant over time, closely resembling A.D. 1961 FAO patterns, and predicts that except for developed regions of Europe, human use of land was insignificant in every biome and region before A.D. 1750.
- KK10 predicts land use from population data using empirically derived nonlinear relationships with population density; it indicates more than 20% of Earth’s Temperate Woodlands were already significantly used by 1000 B.C. and most other biomes by A.D. 1000.
- Regionally, KK10 predicts 20% of Europe and Asia were already used significantly by 3000 B.C. and most other regions by A.D. 1000, whereas HYDE suggests no region outside Europe reached these levels before A.D. 1900.
- Despite human populations exceeding seven billion and increasing per capita food demand, rates of growth in global extent and per capita use of land for agriculture seem to be declining; urbanization rose from approximately 7% in 1800, to 16% in 1900, to more than 50% today, while cities occupy less than 1% of Earth’s ice-free land.
Methods
- Global land use and population datasets divided into five arc-minute grid cells (spatial resolution ∼85 km² at the equator) were obtained for the HYDE 3.1 and KK10 global land-use models.
- These data were analyzed using a Geographic Information System to estimate global areas and populations within a simplified set of terrestrial biomes and world regions.
- Maps depicting first significant land use were produced by overlaying cells with land-use areas >20% of land area at each time period, for all cells where A.D. 2000 land use was also >20%; recovery from peak land use was assessed as the difference between A.D. 2000 land use and the historical maximum percentage land use.
Limitations
- The paper states that no single existing model of Holocene land use is able to make entirely accurate global predictions and that there are significant differences in land-use definitions: HYDE focuses exclusively on cultivated, pasture, and urban areas, while KK10 includes land use more generally, including shifting cultivation and forest harvest along with agricultural land use.
- The paper states that archaeological and historical data are not currently available at levels necessary to quantify agricultural land-use intensification in specific regions and time periods, that the global history of land use cannot be assessed without a far more comprehensive, spatially detailed, quantitative, and accurate global assessment than has ever yet been attempted, and that the paleohistory of anthropogenic change across much of the Americas is especially unclear and controversial.
- Evident in the text: the analysis compares only two global models and does not provide independent empirical validation of either; the paper also notes that the role of fire in preagricultural land-use change remains highly controversial.
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Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.1217241110
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In the paper
“KK10 also indicates that large areas of Earth’s land may now be recovering from higher levels of land use in earlier periods (Fig. 1).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 1
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In the paper
“Comparing spatially explicit land-use predictions from the two main global models of land use across the Holocene reveals the potentially pivotal role of land-use intensification as a global change process (Figs. 1 and 2).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Figs. 1 and 2
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In the paper
“However, these two lines of evidence alone remain insufficient to conclusively determine the global extent of land use in different periods across the Holocene.”
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In the paper
“Human populations and their use of land have now transformed ecosystem pattern and process across most of the terrestrial biosphere (1, 2), causing major global changes in biodiversity (3), biogeochemistry (4–6), geomorphic processes (7), and climate (8).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“Human use of land has transformed ecosystem pattern and process across most of the terrestrial biosphere”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [1] Ellis EC, Klein Goldewijk K, Siebert S, Lightman D, Ramankutty N. Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2010;19(5):589–606. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Broad evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, environmental history, and other disciplines suggests that direct human alteration of terrestrial ecosystems by hunting, foraging, land clearing, agriculture, and other activities has been profound in some regions at least since the late Pleistocene”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“HYDE, the first and most popular model (Figs. 1A and 2 A and C) (31), effectively omits land-use intensification by assuming that land-use per capita remained approximately constant over time, closely resembling the pattern in A.D. 1961”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [31] Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, van Drecht G, de Vos M. The HYDE 3.1 spatially explicit database of human induced global land use change over the past 12,000 years. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2011;20(1):73–86. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“In this general model of intensification, land-use systems tend to follow a three-phase relationship between productivity and population (Fig. 3).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 3
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In the paper
““Involution” occurs once technology-driven productivity increases are exhausted, such that only net increases in labor or other costly inputs enable increases in production (43).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“As humans dispersed from Africa to other continents, microcharcoal records attest to new fire regimes and heightened levels of biomass burning associated with their arrival (46, 47).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“In all cases, regime shifts in land system productivity are driven not by technological innovations in themselves but rather by demographic or social demands for surplus production or reduced labor inputs, usually well after the requisite technologies have become widely available (45).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [45] Netting RM. Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ Press; 1993. p. 416. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Agricultural intensification theory was first formulated by Ester Boserup to explain higher levels of agricultural productivity associated with higher population densities in traditional smallholder agriculture (34, 35).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [34] Boserup E. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. London: Allen & Unwin; 1965. p. 124. [Google Scholar]
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In the paper
“Although showing some significant differences, global land-use reconstructions for the past 300 y tend toward similar regional and global trends (31).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [31] Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, van Drecht G, de Vos M. The HYDE 3.1 spatially explicit database of human induced global land use change over the past 12,000 years. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2011;20(1):73–86. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Finally, production “crises” result once all capacity to enhance land productivity is exhausted and food production cannot keep up with increasing populations (36).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [36] Malthus TR. An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers. London: J. Johnson; 1798. pp. 3–143. [Google Scholar]
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In the paper
“In the “intensification” phase, adoption of more productive technologies enables productivity to increase faster than population.”
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In the paper
“Processes of land-use intensification, if viewed more broadly as adaptive processes by which human populations systematically adopt increasingly productive land-use technologies, have major implications for understanding the dynamics of land use and its potential impacts over the Holocene (24)”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“This has been made possible by agricultural intensification, the adoption of technologies enabling dramatic increases in food production from a given area of agricultural land (23).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“In this model, low-density populations with high per-capita land use first expand to fill all usable land and then intensify land use (use less land per capita) as population densities increase over time.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [4] Kaplan JO, et al. Holocene carbon emissions as a result of anthropogenic land cover change. Holocene. 2011;21(5):775–791. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“An increasing number of archaeological studies demonstrate that human hunter-gatherers modify environments for their own benefit by processes consistent with our general model of land-use intensification (14).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [14] Kirch PV. Archaeology and global change: The holocene record. Annu Rev Environ Resour. 2005;30(1):409. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Hunter-gatherers are known to set fires intentionally to create and maintain early successional ecosystems, which generally have higher productivity than undisturbed ecosystems, in efforts to boost the local availability of food plants and game animals (47, 48).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [47] Rowley-Conwy P, Layton R. Foraging and farming as niche construction: Stable and unstable adaptations. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2011;366(1566):849–862. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0307. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“The KK10 model (Figs. 1B and 2 B and D) (4) predicts land use from population data using empirically derived nonlinear relationships with population density.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [4] Kaplan JO, et al. Holocene carbon emissions as a result of anthropogenic land cover change. Holocene. 2011;21(5):775–791. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“the relationship between any given population and the productivity of its land-use systems is dynamic and responsive not only to demographic forcing but also to the social and economic processes regulating resource demand, land availability, technology adoption and availability, environmental variation, and the potential for intensive use of land to degrade its potential productivity over time (14”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [14] Kirch PV. Archaeology and global change: The holocene record. Annu Rev Environ Resour. 2005;30(1):409. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [39] Turner BL, 2nd, Ali AMS. Induced intensification: agricultural change in Bangladesh with implications for Malthus and Boserup. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1996;93(25):14984–14991. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.25.14984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“The early presence but limited application of more productive agricultural land-use technologies agrees with the classic theory of induced intensification, in which technology adoption is driven not by rates of technological innovation but by demographic pressures for increased agricultural yields as populations increase and land becomes scarce (24, 34, 39).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [24] Ruddiman WF, Ellis EC. Effect of per-capita land use changes on Holocene forest clearance and CO2 emissions. Quat Sci Rev. 2009;28(27-28):3011–3015. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [34] Boserup E. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. London: Allen & Unwin; 1965. p. 124. [Google Scholar]
- Not checked yetcites [39] Turner BL, 2nd, Ali AMS. Induced intensification: agricultural change in Bangladesh with implications for Malthus and Boserup. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1996;93(25):14984–14991. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.25.14984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In less densely populated regions, agricultural productivity was generally much lower, as in the pre- and postcolonial Americas, Australia, and New Zealand (44, 45, 74).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [44] Grigg DB. The Agricultural Systems of the World: An Evolutionary Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 1974. p. 358. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“By the late Pleistocene, hunter-gatherers had also developed another essential preadaptation to agriculture: the planting of seeds.”
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In the paper
“Even in Australasia, where aboriginal use of fire is perhaps best documented (54), the long-term influence of humans on fire has proved difficult to separate from climate variability (55).”
What the sources say
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“By the 1500s and even earlier in some regions of Asia and Europe, agricultural productivity had reached remarkable levels through intensive use of a wide variety of highly developed technologies, including irrigation, multiple cropping, crop rotations incorporating legumes, and a wide range of fertilizers, including manures, ashes, and even commercially traded oil seed cakes (44, 92).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“Human use of fire therefore remains a potentially massive global change that cannot yet be ruled out or in (56).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [56] Bowman DMJS, et al. The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth. J Biogeogr. 2011;38(12):2223–2236. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02595.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Increasingly intensive use of animal resources is well demonstrated across both Eurasia and Africa at the end of the Pleistocene by progressive declines in larger-bodied game and growing use of smaller bodied game, often ending in regional extinctions and associated major ecosystem shifts (3, 58).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [3] Barnosky AD, et al. Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere. Nature. 2012;486(7401):52–58. doi: 10.1038/nature11018. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Agriculture developed 4,000–5,000 y ago in the savanna habitats of Africa (70), India (71), Southeast Asia (72), and the North American forests and savannas (73, 74).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“These early technologies enabled increasing exploitation of and reliance on species that were to become crops, putting humanity on the road to agriculture.”
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In the paper
“Agricultural systems emerged across most continents by early to mid-Holocene by a variety of different pathways in as many as 24 plausibly independent centers of early domestication, with later spread to adjacent regions (60, 63).”
What the sources say
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“As a result, hypotheses relating human activity to historical climate change have yet to be tested rigorously under the full range of plausible historical conditions (4, 24).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [4] Kaplan JO, et al. Holocene carbon emissions as a result of anthropogenic land cover change. Holocene. 2011;21(5):775–791. [Google Scholar] source
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The most densely settled and intensively used agricultural landscapes tend to be the mostly profoundly and permanently transformed by the impacts of land clearing, soil tillage, increased erosion and runoff, nutrient enrichment, domesticated species, and unintentional species introductions (23, 115).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [23] Matson PA, Parton WJ, Power AG, Swift MJ. Agricultural intensification and ecosystem properties. Science. 1997;277(5325):504–509. doi: 10.1126/science.277.5325.504. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Agricultural practices, including tillage, manuring, burning, composting, and use of chemical fertilizers, alter the chemistry and isotopic composition of nitrogen and phosphorus in soils and plant and animal remains (85, 89, 90).”
What the sources say
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In the paper
“As a result, the very different land-use histories produced by different models of Holocene land-use change (Figs. 1 and 2) have major implications in understanding the emergence of humans as a global-scale force transforming climate—a key indicator of Earth system transformation and the emergence of the Anthropocene (9–11).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [9] Crutzen PJ. Geology of mankind. Nature. 2002;415(6867):23. doi: 10.1038/415023a. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Furthermore, deforestation in the middle–high latitudes might have amplified Little Ice Age cooling by exposing more snow and increasing surface albedo (107, 110, 111).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [107] Bounoua L, DeFries R, Collatz GJ, Sellers P, Khan H. Effects of land cover conversion on surface climate. Clim Change. 2002;52(1-2):29–64. [Google Scholar] source
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hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“A major reason why land-use history is significant to understanding anthropogenic global change processes is the strong interaction between land cover and climate (8).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [8] Feddema JJ, et al. The importance of land-cover change in simulating future climates. Science. 2005;310(5754):1674–1678. doi: 10.1126/science.1118160. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Land use and its ecological impacts can be diagnosed from archaeological and paleoecological plant and animal remains, including pollen and phytoliths (70, 72).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [70] Marshall F, Hildebrand E. Cattle before crops: The beginnings of food production in Africa. J World Prehist. 2002;16(2):99–143. [Google Scholar] source
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plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Although similar processes have operated since the emergence of urban populations, recent rapid urban growth has been supported by the rise of high-yielding industrial land-use systems sustained by large energy subsidies from fossil fuels and other industrial inputs, accelerating through the “green revolution” of the 1950s and continuing today (44).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [44] Grigg DB. The Agricultural Systems of the World: An Evolutionary Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 1974. p. 358. [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“These major increases in agricultural productivity have meant that recent dramatic growth in human populations and richer diets have not translated into an acceleration of per capita demand for arable land, but rather to a stabilization or even a decline in this key indicator of human-driven environmental change (103, 104).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [103] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations . Arable Land per Capita (FAOSTAT Online, FAO Statistical Databases) Rome: FAO; 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Not checked yetcites [104] Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011;108(50):20260–20264. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1116437108. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Review of existing archaeological evidence has demonstrated that land-use intensification processes were widespread across the Holocene and perhaps even the late Pleistocene.”
boosted- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“even in less intensively used systems, exotic species tend to become established more frequently and permanently (116)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [116] Sax DF, Gaines SD. Species diversity: From global decreases to local increases. Trends Ecol Evol. 2003;18(11):561–566. [Google Scholar] source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“many, and perhaps most, terrestrial ecosystems have been altered by sustained direct interactions with human populations and land-use systems since the late Pleistocene or early Holocene (13, 14, 115)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [13] Redman CL. Human Impact on Ancient Environments. Tucson, AZ: Univ of Arizona Press; 1999. p. 239. [Google Scholar]
- Not checked yetcites [14] Kirch PV. Archaeology and global change: The holocene record. Annu Rev Environ Resour. 2005;30(1):409. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [115] Ellis EC. Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Proc R Soc A. 2011;369(1938):1010–1035. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0331. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Recent studies indicate that, depending on location, there is still strong potential for further intensification of agricultural land use (22, 104, 126).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [22] Foley JA, et al. Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature. 2011;478(7369):337–342. doi: 10.1038/nature10452. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [104] Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011;108(50):20260–20264. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1116437108. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“increasingly intense land-use systems seem to be evolving in new, more land-efficient, directions that may even reverse many of the environmental impacts of prior land use.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“despite the availability of suitable tools and abundant studies at local scales, the global history of land use and its intensification over the course of the Holocene cannot be assessed without a far more comprehensive, spatially detailed, quantitative, and accurate global assessment of population and land-use histories than has ever yet been attempted.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The single most important lesson from assessing changes in land use across the Holocene is that changes in the productivity of land-use systems, and especially productivity per area of land, has likely been the main long-term driver of change in human impact on the terrestrial biosphere.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Rapid development of highly capitalized demands on land resources now drive massive rapid shifts in land systems, limiting our capacity to predict future land-use changes (128).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [128] Rounsevell MDA, et al. Challenges for land system science. Land Use Policy. 2012;29(4):899–910. [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“available data remain far from adequate to quantify the global significance of land use and intensification processes over the long term.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Direct human alterations of geomorphology and hydrology, including irrigation systems and other earthworks, are also useful indicators of human use of land, together with changes in the rates and spatial patterns of soil erosion and sedimentation rates in terrestrial, coastal, and lacustrine environments (7).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [7] Syvitski JPM, Kettner A. Sediment flux and the Anthropocene. Phil Trans R Soc A. 2011;369(1938):957–975. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0329. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Some of Earths’ most fertile lands are rapidly undergoing large-scale conversions to urban areas (102).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [102] Lambin EF, et al. The causes of land-use and land-cover change: Moving beyond the myths. Glob Environ Change. 2001;11(4):261–269. [Google Scholar] source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“even the best field studies of long-term ecological and archaeological changes at specific sites are subject to methodological and empirical limitations and uncertainties (123)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [123] Jackson ST. Representation of flora and vegetation in Quaternary fossil assemblages: Known and unknown knowns and unknowns. Quat Sci Rev. 2012;49(0):1–15. [Google Scholar] source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“the implicit view from the Anthropocene that humans have reached a historical moment in which “wild nature” is threatened by an accelerating and unchecked expansion of human use of land is challenged by a view that humans are ancestral shapers and stewards of Earth’s terrestrial surface (82, 83).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [82] Cronon W. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang; 1983. p. 235. [Google Scholar]
- Not checked yetcites [83] Foster D, et al. The importance of land-use legacies to ecology and conservation. Bioscience. 2003;53(1):77–88. [Google Scholar] source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The pace of agricultural intensification is, therefore, also likely to remain a major determinant of future land change and our ability to meet societal demands for food, feed, housing, and energy (104).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [104] Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011;108(50):20260–20264. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1116437108. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- It may state two separate claims as one. 46
- Probably not a substantial claim. 19
In the paper
“The strikingly different predictions of these two models (Figs. 1 and 2) are almost entirely the result of differences in the way they represent land-use intensification processes; their population datasets are nearly the same (Fig. 2).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 2
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“HYDE predicts that except for the developed regions of Europe, human use of land was insignificant in every biome and region before A.D. 1750 (Fig. 2 A and C).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 2 A and C
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“HYDE suggests that no region outside Europe reached these levels before A.D. 1900.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 2D
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“In KK10, land use emerges as a major global change far earlier in the Holocene, with more than 20% of Earth’s Temperate Woodlands already significantly used by 1000 B.C. and most other biomes by A.D. 1000 (Fig. 2B).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 2B
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Regionally, KK10 predicts that 20% of Europe and Asia were already used significantly by 3000 B.C. and most other regions by A.D. 1000 (Fig. 2D)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 2D
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Results from the first spatially explicit quantitative global land-use models over the course of the Holocene demonstrate that land-use intensification is a potentially pivotal process in both regulating the ecological impacts of human populations and in sustaining their global growth from the beginning of the Holocene to the present day.”
boostedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Boserup’s theory opposed the classic Malthusian claim that human populations were limited by agricultural productivity (36)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [36] Malthus TR. An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers. London: J. Johnson; 1798. pp. 3–143. [Google Scholar]
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
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Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“proposing instead that agriculturalists increased productivity only when population increases demanded this, because their objective was to invest the least amount of labor, technology, and other resources necessary to support their livelihoods, even when the technological capacity for greater productivity was available (34, 37).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [34] Boserup E. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. London: Allen & Unwin; 1965. p. 124. [Google Scholar]
- Not checked yetcites [37] Boserup E. Population and Technological Change: A Study of Long Term Trends. Chicago: Univ of Chicago Press; 1981. p. 255. [Google Scholar]
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
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Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Overall, these global model intercomparisons reveal two very different Earth histories, one in which land use has recently accelerated, and one in which land use began early and became strikingly more efficient over time, leading to recoveries in some regions.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“No single existing model of Holocene land use is able to make entirely accurate global predictions”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
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Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“By this model, hunter-gatherer’s use of fire to enhance foraging success is a form of land-use intensification, as is land clearing for shifting cultivation, wet rice cultivation, the moldboard plow, and contemporary use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and mechanization (44, 45).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [44] Grigg DB. The Agricultural Systems of the World: An Evolutionary Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 1974. p. 358. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [45] Netting RM. Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ Press; 1993. p. 416. [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Even as human populations increase beyond seven billion and per capita demand for food is increasing, rates of growth in the global extent and per capita use of land for agriculture seem to be declining (22).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [22] Foley JA, et al. Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature. 2011;478(7369):337–342. doi: 10.1038/nature10452. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“As a result, a general trend toward increasing productivity with population density is attained not as a smooth and continuous process but through a complex succession of land system regime shifts, some of them regressive, with populations and their production systems subject to both surplus production and productivity crises, as depicted in Fig. 3.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 3
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Boserup’s theory inspired a wide array of intensification theories across archaeology (14), anthropology (38), geography (39), development studies (40), economics, environmental history, and other disciplines and has been extended to include land tenure and other social institutions, market forces, and nonagricultural populations (39, 41, 42).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [14] Kirch PV. Archaeology and global change: The holocene record. Annu Rev Environ Resour. 2005;30(1):409. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [38] Hamilton MJ, Milne BT, Walker RS, Brown JH. Nonlinear scaling of space use in human hunter-gatherers. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104(11):4765–4769. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0611197104. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“with long-term impacts from forest clearing, increased fire frequencies, megafaunal extinctions, species invasions, soil erosion, and others (13, 14)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [13] Redman CL. Human Impact on Ancient Environments. Tucson, AZ: Univ of Arizona Press; 1999. p. 239. [Google Scholar]
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Studies have suggested that intentional burning could have had very large effects on vegetation cover in the mesic environments of New Zealand (49), the wet tropical forests of the pre-Columbian Amazon (50), and across the savannas and woodlands of Africa (51).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [49] McWethy DB, et al. Rapid landscape transformation in South Island, New Zealand, following initial Polynesian settlement. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010;107(50):21343–21348. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011801107. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“there are significant differences in the land-use definitions of different models, with HYDE focusing exclusively on cultivated, pasture, and urban areas, and KK10 on land use more generally, including shifting cultivation and forest harvest along with agricultural land use.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [31] Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, van Drecht G, de Vos M. The HYDE 3.1 spatially explicit database of human induced global land use change over the past 12,000 years. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2011;20(1):73–86. [Google Scholar] source
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Most continental to global reviews of the Holocene sedimentary charcoal record have concluded that fire activity is most strongly correlated with climate variability and suggest that anthropogenic burning had only local effects on land cover (52, 53).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [52] Power M, et al. Changes in fire regimes since the Last Glacial Maximum: An assessment based on a global synthesis and analysis of charcoal data. Clim Dyn. 2008;30(7):887–907. [Google Scholar] source
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boostedcorrelational- Asserted: fails — The authors may not put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In Southwest Asia (by 7000 B.C.) and Europe (by 5000 B.C.), the early presence of intensive land-use technologies has been confirmed by stable nitrogen isotope ratios in preserved crop grains, indicating that manures were used to sustain intensive cultivation near settlements (90, 91).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [90] Bogaard A, Heaton THE, Poulton P, Merbach I. The impact of manuring on nitrogen isotope ratios in cereals: Archaeological implications for reconstruction of diet and crop management practices. J Archaeol Sci. 2007;34(3):335–343. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“Although some pathways led from sedentary hunter-gatherers to early farmers, as in Southwest Asia or Yangtze China (68), others shifted from mobile hunting to the addition of herding first, for example in Africa (70), or from mobile hunting and gathering to mobile forms of agriculture like shifting cultivation, as in India (75), New Guinea (76), or South America (77).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [68] Fuller D, Qin L. Declining oaks, increasing artistry, and cultivating rice: The environmental and social context of the emergence of farming in the Lower Yangtze Region. Environ Archaeol. 2010;15(2):139–159. [Google Scholar] source
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“As populations gradually increased, more intensive land-use practices were adopted to sustain them (intensification), or populations migrated to areas with lower levels of land use (extensification), including uninhabited wildlands.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Once settled into new environments, human populations grew to levels unprecedented by earlier Hominins, putting pressure on plant and animal resources that ultimately led to expanding human procurement of increasingly smaller and harder to catch prey, in an adaptive transition that archaeologists have dubbed the “broad spectrum revolution” (57).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [57] Stiner MC. Thirty years on the “broad spectrum revolution” and paleolithic demography. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2001;98(13):6993–6996. doi: 10.1073/pnas.121176198. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Although existing archaeological and historical evidence seems to support this theory in general, data are not currently available at the levels necessary to quantify the status of agricultural land-use intensification in specific regions and time periods across the Holocene.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Nevertheless, the evidence is clear that agricultural human populations had spread across most continents by the mid-Holocene, leading to the clearing of native vegetation and herbivores, their replacement with domesticates, and the increasingly intensive application of techniques and inputs to enhance the productivity of land as populations became denser (44, 61).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [44] Grigg DB. The Agricultural Systems of the World: An Evolutionary Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 1974. p. 358. [Google Scholar] source
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In the paper
“These techniques may have boosted the nutritional returns on foraging efforts for small seeds and tubers to levels that made them worth exploiting at high levels for the first time (59), thereby potentially setting them on course to later domestication (60).”
What the sources say
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hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Processing techniques such as grinding, boiling, fermenting, and roasting were gradually adopted to enhance nutrient bioavailability from plant and animal foods, further increasing the amount of food extractable from a given area of land (59).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [59] Wollstonecroft M. Investigating the role of food processing in human evolution: A niche construction approach. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. 2011;3(1):141–150. [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Similarly, as rice agriculture gradually spread southward and westward, reaching Thailand and northern India by 2000 B.C., less intensive rainfed and naturally inundated systems were first used (72), followed much later by more intensive systems (44).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [72] Castillo C. Rice in Thailand: The archaeobotanical contribution. Rice. 2011;4(3):114–120. [Google Scholar] source
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plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“By the early Holocene, hunter-gatherer populations had spread across the Earth and depended on early land-use intensification processes to survive and to grow and lived mostly within ecosystems reshaped by their ancestors to enhance their productivity.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Some developed at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, including Southwest Asia (60, 64), South America (65, 66), and North China (67), whereas others took place closer to 6,000–7,000 y ago, such as Yangtze China (68) and perhaps central America (cf. 69).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [60] Fuller DQ, Willcox G, Allaby RG. Cultivation and domestication had multiple origins: Arguments against the core area hypothesis for the origins of agriculture in the Near East. World Archaeol. 2011;43(4):628–652. [Google Scholar] source
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hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The rise and dispersal of agricultural populations across Earth’s land was likely driven by increasing rates of population growth sustained by early agricultural economies (93–95), which likely enabled them to dominate Earth’s most productive landscapes, where increasingly intensive agricultural systems became established in most regions of the world, despite the periodic collapse of individual”
What the sources say
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hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In China, historical evidence supports a long and gradual history of extensification and later intensification of rice production, even though advanced technologies were available early (92).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [92] Ellis EC, Wang SM. Sustainable traditional agriculture in the Tai Lake Region of China. Agric Ecosyst Environ. 1997;61(2-3):177–193. [Google Scholar] source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Widespread agricultural land use by mid-Holocene is further evidenced by altered fire regimes that may have transformed vegetation structure and species composition across many regions, with woodland ecosystems from the Mediterranean to the Tropics increasingly recognized as the bio-cultural legacies of long histories of prior human use (50, 74, 78–84).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [50] Nevle RJ, Bird DK, Ruddiman WF, Dull RA. Neotropical human–landscape interactions, fire, and atmospheric CO2 during European conquest. Holocene. 2011;21(5):853–864. [Google Scholar] source
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hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Although preagricultural technologies for ecosystem engineering have far lower productivities than the agricultural technologies that came later, they still enabled human populations to grow beyond the capabilities of unaltered ecosystems to support them.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Agricultural yields within the most densely populated and productive preindustrial land-use systems compared well with modern yields and were sustained in some regions for centuries to millennia, even though they also tended to require extreme inputs of labor and other socially unsustainable hardships (43–45, 92).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [43] Geertz C. Agricultural Involution: The Process of Ecological Change in Indonesia. Berkeley, CA: Univ of California Press; 1963. p. 176. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [44] Grigg DB. The Agricultural Systems of the World: An Evolutionary Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 1974. p. 358. [Google Scholar] source
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plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, most simulation studies are based on a narrow set of land cover reconstructions over at most one millennium and do not incorporate the effects of land use and its intensification across the Holocene.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Industrial technologies, especially mechanization, have also largely decoupled human labor from productivity increases, enabling an unprecedented proportion of human populations to live within cities, which even today occupy less than 1% of Earth’s ice-free land (19).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [19] Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, Janssen P. Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1. Holocene. 2010;20(4):565–573. [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Still, the scale and rate of urbanization over the past two centuries is unprecedented, with the percentage of human populations living in cities growing from approximately 7% in 1800, to 16% in 1900, to more than 50% today (19).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [19] Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, Janssen P. Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1. Holocene. 2010;20(4):565–573. [Google Scholar] source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Despite their unprecedented scale, sophistication, and productive capacity, the rise of intensive industrial land-use systems fits well within our general definition of land-use intensification (Fig. 3), with increasing human population densities, concentrated within urban settlements in this case, driving ever increasing productivity per unit area of land.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fig. 3
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The first urban populations dependent on trade for their sustenance emerged as early as 4000 B.C. in the Near East and became common across the Indus Valley, Egypt, and China by 1500 B.C. (97), with major cities (populations >100,000) developing by 2000 y ago in the Near East, Europe, and Asia (14).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [97] Tellier LN. Urban World History: An Economic and Geographical Perspective. Quebec City: Presses de l'Université du Québec; 2009. p. 629. [Google Scholar]
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Vegetation cover changes caused by land use can alter regional and global climate through both biogeochemical (emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols) and biogeophysical (albedo, evapotranspiration, and surface roughness) feedbacks with the atmosphere, with reverse effects following land abandonment, reforestation, and other vegetation recoveries (107).”
What the sources say
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The massive food and resource demands of large, wealthy, and growing urban populations require high levels of agricultural surplus production and trade, which tend to be met by increasingly intensive and productive agricultural systems concentrated in Earth’s most productive agricultural lands, supported by ever larger scales of farming operations, trading systems, and technological institutions (”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [44] Grigg DB. The Agricultural Systems of the World: An Evolutionary Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 1974. p. 358. [Google Scholar] source
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“As agriculture continues to intensify and migration to cities depopulates rural landscapes, lands less suited to industrial-scale production are being abandoned in some regions, enabling large-scale forest recoveries, especially where governance systems support this (84, 105, 106).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [84] Foster DR, Motzkin G, Slater B. Land-use history as long-term broad-scale disturbance: Regional forest dynamics in central New England. Ecosystems (N Y) 1998;1(1):96–119. [Google Scholar] source
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Modeled regional and global climate responses to simulated (107, 110, 111) and reconstructed historical land cover changes over the past century (112) and millennium (113) generally agree that anthropogenic deforestation drives biogeophysical cooling at higher latitudes and warming in low latitudes and suggest that biogeochemical impacts tend to exceed biogeophysical effects (113).”
What the sources say
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hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“To be effective in conserving ecosystems and biodiversity altered by millennia of human interaction, ecological science and conservation will need to go beyond the view of humans as a recent disturbance and incorporate a solid theoretical and historical understanding of the dynamics of human populations and land-use systems and their role in shaping ecosystems over the long term (83, 115, 118).”
What the sources say
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plainconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
In the paper
“increased fire frequencies are associated with low human population densities and fire suppression with higher population densities (117)”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [117] Bowman DMJS, et al. Fire in the Earth system. Science. 2009;324(5926):481–484. doi: 10.1126/science.1163886. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Concentrating human populations within cities transforms the economies of scale in human interactions, producing higher average incomes and enabling a wide array of novel social benefits as urban systems advance (98, 99), which in turn enable further growth and help to drive rural–urban migration (100, 101).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [98] Bettencourt LMA, Lobo J, Helbing D, Kühnert C, West GB. Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104(17):7301–7306. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0610172104. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
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plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Combustion processes often leave signs of land use and related human activities, including enhanced fire rates and forest clearing (122) and the preindustrial use of harvested biomass for fuel (53, 117).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [122] Clark JD, Harris JWK. Fire and its roles in early hominid lifeways. Afr Archaeol Rev. 1985;3(1):3–27. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [53] Marlon JR, et al. Climate and human influences on global biomass burning over the past two millennia. Nat Geosci. 2008;1(10):697–702. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [117] Bowman DMJS, et al. Fire in the Earth system. Science. 2009;324(5926):481–484. doi: 10.1126/science.1163886. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Although projected increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by fossil fuel combustion are expected to dominate 21st century climate change, some studies suggest that anthropogenic land use may yet be at least as important and may remain so in the near future (8).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [8] Feddema JJ, et al. The importance of land-cover change in simulating future climates. Science. 2005;310(5754):1674–1678. doi: 10.1126/science.1118160. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Maps depicting first significant land use were produced by overlaying maps of cells with land-use areas >20% of land area within each cell at each time period (20% criteria for significant land use as per refs. 1 and 115), for all cells where A.D. 2000 land use was also >20% of land area in each cell (earliest at the top; Fig. 1).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [1] Ellis EC, Klein Goldewijk K, Siebert S, Lightman D, Ramankutty N. Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2010;19(5):589–606. [Google Scholar] source
- Not checked yetcites [115] Ellis EC. Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Proc R Soc A. 2011;369(1938):1010–1035. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0331. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“If, as suggested by intensification theory and archaeological data, land-use intensification was gradual across the Holocene, the results of historical modeling reveal an Earth significantly transformed by land use by 1000 B.C., with significant areas on nearly every continent now in recovery from past historical peaks of land use (Fig. 1B).”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Although the scale of these efforts would require unprecedented levels of support, standardized global sets of local historical land use and population reconstructions might ultimately enable strong empirical testing of the global importance and historical dynamics of land use as a force transforming the terrestrial biosphere across the Holocene.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
In the paper
“Global market integration has increased connectivity between world regions, with regions having the highest demand for land resources often experiencing agricultural abandonment and reforestation while displacing their production needs to less developed regions (127), mirroring patterns from the colonial era.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [127] Meyfroidt P, Rudel TK, Lambin EF. Forest transitions, trade, and the global displacement of land use. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010;107(49):20917–20922. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1014773107. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Alternatively, if land use per capita has been fairly constant across the Holocene, early land use was mostly localized and globally insignificant and accelerated greatly only in recent centuries (Fig. 1A).”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: fails — The authors may not put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The authors may not put it forward as true. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These maps were then overlaid on maps depicting recovery from peak land use in each cell, assessed as the difference between A.D. 2000 land use and the historical maximum percentage land use (Fig. 1).”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“These data were analyzed using a Geographic Information System to estimate global areas and populations within a simplified set of terrestrial biomes (aggregated from the potential vegetation classes of ref. 28) and world regions (after ref. 1).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [28] Ramankutty N, Foley JA. Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992. Global Biogeochem Cycles. 1999;13(4):997–1027. [Google Scholar] source
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“The paleohistory of anthropogenic change across much of the Americas is especially unclear and controversial (e.g., refs. 74, 82, and 125) and may be exceptional compared with other continents.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [74] Munoz SE, Gajewski K. Distinguishing prehistoric human influence on late-Holocene forests in southern Ontario, Canada. Holocene. 2010;20(6):967–981. [Google Scholar] source
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hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Although the evidence from archaeology and environmental history point toward the former view of land-use history, available data remain far from adequate to quantify the global significance of land use and intensification processes over the long term.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“there remain a wide array of societal challenges in adapting land systems to meet growing demands (104).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [104] Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011;108(50):20260–20264. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1116437108. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Global land use and population datasets divided into five arc minute grid cells (spatial resolution ∼85 km2 at the equator) were obtained for the HYDE 3.1 (19, 31) and KK10 (4) global land-use models.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites [19] Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, Janssen P. Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1. Holocene. 2010;20(4):565–573. [Google Scholar] source
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plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
59 of 59
The authors state this as an assumption.
Land-use intensification theory and archaeological data suggest that land-use intensification was gradual across the Holocene.
“If, as suggested by intensification theory and archaeological data, land-use intensification was gradual across the Holocene, the results of historical modeling reveal an Earth significantly transformed by land use by 1000 B.C.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
Land use per capita has been fairly constant across the Holocene.
“Alternatively, if land use per capita has been fairly constant across the Holocene, early land use was mostly localized and globally insignificant and accelerated greatly only in recent centuries (Fig. 1A).”
2 of 2
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“The human impact on the landscape can be traced back to early hunter -gatherer groups that intervened into and consciously interacted with their immediate habitats (Ellis et al. 2013; Morgan 2009).”
From From landscape affordances to landscape connectivity: contextualizing an archaeology of human ecology (2020) · cites this paper as Ellis et al. 2013
Citations
Cites
A safe operating space for humanity
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Global Consequences of Land Use
Foley, J. A., DeFries, R., Asner, G. P., Barford, C., Bonan, G., Carpenter, S. R., Chapin, F. S., Coe, M. T., Daily, G. C., Gibbs, H. K., et al. (2005) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1111772 · Cited by 13,272
Solutions for a cultivated planet
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Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture
Tilman, D., Balzer, C., Hill, J., & Befort, B. L. (2011) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1116437108 · Cited by 7,692
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The causes of land-use and land-cover change: moving beyond the myths
Lambin, E. F., Turner, B. L., Geist, H. J., Agbola, S. B., Angelsen, A., Bruce, J. W., Coomes, O. T., Dirzo, R., Fischer, G., Folke, C., et al. (2001) · Global Environmental Change · doi:10.1016/s0959-3780(01)00007-3 · Cited by 3,788
The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature
Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R. (2007) · AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment · doi:10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:taahno]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 3,487
Bowman, D. M. J. S., Balch, J. K., Artaxo, P., Bond, W. J., Carlson, J. M., Cochrane, M. A., D’Antonio, C. M., DeFries, R. S., Doyle, J. C., Harrison, S. P., et al. (2009) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1163886 · Cited by 3,351
Agricultural Intensification and Ecosystem Properties
Matson, P. A., Parton, W. J., Power, A. G., & Swift, M. J. (1997) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.277.5325.504 · Cited by 3,160
Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities
Bettencourt, L. M. A., Lobo, J., Helbing, D., Kühnert, C., & West, G. B. (2007) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0610172104 · Cited by 2,699
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- RW Kates, G Hydén, BL Turner Theory, Evidence, Study Design. Population Growth and Agricultural Change in Africa, Carter Lecture Series, , eds Turner, II BL, Hydén G, Kates RW (Univ Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL), pp 1–40. (1993).
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lewis, S. L., & Maslin, M. A. (2015) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature14258 · Cited by 3,441
An ecoregion-based approach to protecting half the terrestrial realm
Dinerstein, E., Olson, D., Joshi, A., Vynne, C., Burgess, N. D., Wikramanayake, E., Hahn, N., Palminteri, S., Hedao, P., Noss, R., et al. (2017) · BioScience · doi:10.1093/biosci/bix014 · Cited by 2,460
Self-citationThe Capitalocene, Part I: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis
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Soil and human security in the 21st century
Amundson, R., Berhe, A. A., Hopmans, J. W., OLSON, C. G., Sztein, A. E., & Sparks, D. L. (2015) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1261071 · Cited by 1,571
Assemblage Time Series Reveal Biodiversity Change but Not Systematic Loss
Dornelas, M., Gotelli, N. J., McGill, B., Shimadzu, H., Moyes, F., Sievers, C., & Magurran, A. E. (2014) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1248484 · Cited by 1,412
Metadata
- Authors
- Ellis, E. C., Kaplan, J. O., Fuller, D. Q., Vavrus, S., Klein Goldewijk, K., & Verburg, P. H.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US)
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- University College London (GB)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), 3720 AH Bilthoven and Utrecht University (UU), 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands; and
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2013-04-29
- Volume
- 110
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 7978-7985
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3657770
- OpenAlex
- W2051997212
- Semantic Scholar
- f738f3b4793a8868e6f8970c70653d2b7183c1ce
- Cited by
- 812
- References
- 145
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 54 · 2023: 71 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 78 · 2020: 73 · 2019: 72 · 2018: 59 · 2017: 84 · 2016: 53 · 2015: 61 · 2014: 52 · 2013: 16
- FWCI
- 46.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- OPUS (Augsburg University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Natural Environment Research Council (NE/G005540/1, NE/K003402/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Social Sciences › Archeology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil and Environmental Studies
- Keywords
- land use history, human impact on ecosystems, land use intensification, human-environment relationship, paleoecology, global change
- MeSH terms
- Agriculture, Climate, Conservation of Natural Resources, Ecology, Geography, Humans, Ecosystem, Earth, Planet, History, Ancient, Climate Change
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-08, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).
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