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Land Use

Land Use

Agriculture is by far the largest human demand on the world's surface, taking up about half of all arable land 1. The land area of cities, though currently small, is projected to grow rapidly in the coming decades.

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Data on barren land, glaciers, grass and shrubs, forests, aquatic and flooded land, crops, and pasture is reported in 2. Data on managed forests is reported in 3. Data on roads, rail, reservoirs, mining, and quarrying is reported in 4. Urban land area is estimated from 5, with adjustments to 2018 urban population from 6 and 7. Rural land area is estimated from urban land area, using the urban-to-rural population density ratio as in 4. See also 1.

Total of all categories is not exactly equal to the area of the Earth due to the use of independent estimates. Urban land area in particular is highly uncertain, with estimates from FAOSTAT 2 and GRUMP 8 much lower and higher respectively.

Land use is evolving as follows.

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World surface area by biome, 1997 and 2011. Source: Costanza et al. 9.

The main causes of desertification and land degradation are farming and grazing practices, and desertification is exacerbated by climate change 10.

Monetizing the costs of land and ocean usage is difficult and controversial, but the costs may be substantial.

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Estimates of worldwide monetized costs from conversion and degradation of land and mismanagement of oceans. Figures are 2020 US Dollars. Sources: Costanza et al. 9, the ELD Initiative 11, and UNDP and GEF 12, with OECD 13 providing an overall summary. The cost of services from forests and wetlands is offset by a gain of $255 billion to $4.8 trillion of services from grassland, cropland, and cities 9.

Problem:
Impacts of Land Use
Solution:
Ecosystem Service Pricing

Land Use Change

World land use is still trending toward agriculture, and net deforestation is occurring, but the pace of change is slowing down 14.

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Land use change from 1960-2019, in millions of square kilometers. Some areas have changed multiple times. Source: Winkler et al. 14.

Infrastructure

Long, narrow infrastructure, such as roads, power lines 15, pipelines 16, railroads 17, irrigation, and fences 18, 19, may have an ecological impact disproportionate to their area.

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Sources: 20 and 21.

Roads can cause fragmentation and genetic drift of wildlife population 22.

Overpasses or underpasses for wildlife is one solution, and it has been found to add 7-8% to the cost of a road project 23. A study found wildlife underpasses in Virginia to be cost effective, assessed on their ability to prevent property damage and human loss of life 24.

Problem:
Threat to Biodiversity From Roads
Solution:
Wildlife Corridors

References

  1. Roser, M., Ritchie, H. "Land Use". Our World in Data. Accessed March 23, 2019. ↩ ↩2

  2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "FAOSTAT". ↩ ↩2

  3. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Global Forest Resource Assessments 2015". Second Edition. 2016. ↩

  4. Hooke, R., Martín-Duque, J. "Land transformation by humans: A review". The Geological Society of America Today 22(12), pp. 4-10. December 2012. ↩ ↩2

  5. Cox, W. "How much of the world is covered by cities?". NewGeography. July 2010. ↩

  6. The World Bank. "Population, total". Accessed December 11, 2019. ↩

  7. The World Bank. "Urban population". Accessed December 11, 2019. ↩

  8. Center for International Earth Science Information Network - CIESIN. "Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Land and Water Area". Columbia University, Palisades, NY: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Accessed December 11, 2019. ↩

  9. Costanza, R., de Groot, R., Sutton, P., van der Ploeg, S., Anderson, S., Kubiszewski, I., Farber, S., Turner, R. "Changes in the global value of ecosystem services". Global Environmental Change 26, pp. 152-158. May 2014. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Montanarella, L., Scholes, R., and Brainich, A. (eds.). "The IPBES assessment report on land degradation and restoration". Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Bonn, Germany. 744 pages. 2018. ↩

  11. ELD Initiative. "The value of land: Prosperous lands and positive rewards through sustainable land management". September 2015. ↩

  12. United Nations Development Program, Global Environment Facility. "Catalysing Ocean Finance". December 2012. ↩

  13. OECD. "Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic and Business Case for Action". Prepared for the French G7 Presidency and the G7 Environment Ministers’ Meeting, 5-6 May 2019. May 2019. ↩

  14. Winkler K., Fuchs R., Rounsevell M., Herold M. "Global land use changes are four times greater than previously estimated". Nature communications 12(1), pp. 1-10. May 2021. ↩ ↩2

  15. Biasotto, L., Kindel, A. "Power lines and impacts on biodiversity: A systematic review". Environmental Impact Assessment Review 71, pp. 110-119. July 2018. ↩

  16. Richardson, M., Wilson, B., Aiuto, D., Crosby, J., Alonso, A., Dallmeier, F., Golinski, G. "A review of the impact of pipelines and power lines on biodiversity and strategies for mitigation". Biodiversity and Conservation volume 26, pp. 1801-1815. April 2017. ↩

  17. Lucas, P., de Carvalho, R., Grilo, C. Railway Disturbances on Wildlife: Types, Effects, and Mitigation Measures. Railway Ecology, pp. 81-99. September 2017. ↩

  18. Jakes, A., Jones, P., Paige, L., Seidler, R., Huijser, M. "A fence runs through it: A call for greater attention to the influence of fences on wildlife and ecosystems". Biological Conservation 227, pp. 310-318. November 2018. ↩

  19. McInturff, A., Xu, W., Wilkinson, C., Dejid, D., Brashares, J. "Fence Ecology: Frameworks for Understanding the Ecological Effects of Fences". BioScience 70(11), pp. 971-985. September 2020. ↩

  20. Benítez-López, A., Alkemade, R., Verweij, P. "The impacts of roads and other infrastructure on mammal and bird populations: A meta-analysis". Biological Conservation 143(6), pp. 1307-1316. 2010. ↩

  21. Goosem, M. "Fragmentation impacts caused by roads through rainforests". Current Science, pp.1587-1595. December 2007. ↩

  22. Holderegger, R., Di Giulio, M. "The genetic effects of roads: A review of empirical evidence". Basic and Applied Ecology 11(6), pp. 522-531. September 2010. ↩

  23. Bank, F. et al. "Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Across European Highways". Prepared for the Office of International Programs, Office of Policy, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. August 2002. ↩

  24. Donaldson, B. "The Use of Highway Underpasses by Large Mammals in Virginia and Factors Influencing their Effectiveness". Prepared for the Virginia Department of Transportation. August 2005. ↩