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Chapter 6: Consequences of Land Use and Land Cover Change

Research has shown clear evidence that changes in land use and land cover have significant impacts on a variety of environmental, ecological, economic and social conditions and processes.   These consequences of change are both direct and indirect, and also are manifest at a range of spatial and temporal scales.   Improving understanding and knowledge of consequences of land use and land cover change is an important goal of the science strategy for land use and land cover change research.

Research on the impacts and consequences of land use and land cover change will need to be directly related to, and integrated with, each of the other research themes of LULCC.   Linking consequences of change to drivers of change is an important research goal for this program. Although much understanding and knowledge of consequences will be based on research developed within single disciplines, developing an integrated understanding of consequences of change to support global change research as well as land management and policy decision-making requires that the scientific program of research on consequences adopt an interdisciplinary approach.   The research should aim to develop quantitative metrics of impacts to provide objective information to support management and policy decision-making.   The critical requirement for integrating research and management is development of active collaboration and partnership between scientists and stakeholders. Adaptive management provides one framework within which this collaboration and understanding can develop.

Research is needed to develop and extend a robust, comprehensive, and scientifically defensible framework for organizing and prioritizing research to provide a holistic evaluation of consequences of change.   Such a framework will provide a mechanism for organizing relevant research, enable managers easily to see research gaps and help to establish research to address priority topics.   The framework will also provide a way to look at priorities among different types of land use and land cover changes. Developing this framework can be achieved through a series of impacts workshops and white papers.  

Research needs for consequences of land use and land cover change are examined in selected categories of consequence e.g.   Human Health, Managed and “Natural” Ecosystems and Water Quality. These topics are neither exclusive, nor do they identify an exhaustive set of issues.   For the impacts addressed, products will provide valuable information about possible scenarios of land use change that will be of use in decision-making and resource management; the research will also link directly with the Decision Support Resources Development objective of the US Global Change Strategic Plan.

Specific Research Goals

6.1 Conduct a series of workshops to synthesize current knowledge and develop research agenda on land use and human health (Ongoing, Priority 2)

Workshops are proposed on LULCC and urban air quality and LULCC and contagious and vector-borne diseases.   These workshops would generate review and synthesis reports and define a community research agenda, providing input to subsequent agency calls for proposals in these areas. The former workshop would lead to research that will develop risk assessment models to evaluate the human health cost of changes in air quality. The latter workshop would involve epidemiologists, biomedical statisticians and land use scientists.   The workshop will lead to research that develops risk and exposure models for use in projecting consequences of land use and land cover

6.2. Conduct research to better understand LULCC impacts on food security and societal vulnerability (Ongoing, Priority 2)

Research is needed to develop a scientific understanding of the relationship between land use and land cover change and local and regional food security, land degradation, economics and human well being. This goal would also examine societal vulnerability and the potential impacts of land use on floods and drought on food security. This would build on the modeling initiatives developed in 5.1 above.

6.3 Develop monitoring techniques and strategies to understand the consequences of LULCC on changes in surface and subsurface water quality and quantity)

A workshop is needed to inventory the state of knowledge for monitoring techniques and strategies that identify the status and changes in surface and subsurface water quality and quantity and the relationship with patterns of land use and land cover at local, regional, national and global scales.   The workshop would lead to research on models relating surface and subsurface water quality and quantity to specific land cover and land use patterns and changes. This workshop would be held in conjunction with the CCSP Water Cycle element.

6.4 Assess the impact of LULCC on Carbon Cycle and managed and natural ecosystems (Ongoing, Priority 1)

A research program is needed to evaluate the rates and consequences of conversion of natural and managed ecosystems into urban and other land uses and the impact on the Carbon Cycle.   This research will focus on the spatial influence of land use changes that are projected into neighboring areas.   This is an important spatial characteristic of certain land use changes for which change in and near natural ecosystems provides an exemplary case study.   The research will also allow detailed quantification of the impacts of change in ecosystem services over the recent past and present in both managed and natural ecosystems, and develop models that allow projection of the ecological consequences of land use and land cover change into the future. The task will include studies on the impacts of urban and agricultural extensification and intensification over a range of scales. In addition to addressing ecosystem goods and services, particular attention will also be given to the impacts of LULCC on the carbon cycle. In the early stages of the program workshops will be held in the framework of the Carbon Cycle and North American Carbon Project. These studies will be undertaken with the Carbon and Ecosystem elements of the CCSP.

6.5 To increase knowledge and understanding of land management decisions in moderating the possible effects of land use and other global changes (Ongoing, Priority 2)

Research is needed to increase knowledge and understanding of land management decisions in moderating the possible adverse effects of land use and other global changes.   Research will focus on case studies of adaptive management and best management practices in different land use and land cover types among a broad range of land management stakeholders.   The products will be decision models of land management decision-making behavior and improved understanding of how scientific information is used in decision-making and land management.  

Timeline and Costs

Total cost to realize this research strategy focused on consequences of land use and land cover change is $30 million over ten years, or an average of about $3 million per year. The five proposed impacts workshops targeted at bringing together scientists and stakeholder communities would have an estimated cost of $100,000 each, including cost of publication and wide dissemination of the workshop products.