Low emission development strategies in agriculture. An agriculture, forestry, and other land uses (AFOLU) perspective

As countries experience economic growth and choose among available development pathways, they are in a favorable position to adopt natural resource use technologies and production practices that favor efficient use of inputs, healthy soils, and ecosystems. Current emphasis on increasing resilience to climate change and reducing agricultural greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions strengthens the support for sustainable agricultural production. In fact, reducing losses in soil fertility, reclaiming degraded lands, and promoting synergistic interaction between crop production and forests are generally seen as good climate change policies. In order for decision-makers to develop long-term policies that address these issues, they must have tools at their disposal that evaluate trade-offs, opportunities, and repercussions of the options considered. In this paper, the authors combine and reconcile the output of three models widely accessible to the public to analyze the impacts of policies that target emission reduction in the agricultural sector. We present an application to Colombia which reveals the importance of considering the full scope of interactions among the various land uses. Results indicate that investments in increasing the efficiency and productivity of the livestock sector and reducing land allocated to pasture are preferable to policies that target deforestation alone or target a reduction of emissions in crop production. Investments in livestock productivity and land-carrying capacity would reduce deforestation and provide sufficient gains in carbon stock to offset greater emissions from increased crop production while generating higher revenues

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) : Finding the win–wins for energy, negative emissions and ecosystem services—size matters

Funding information Natural Environment Research Council, Grant/Award Number: NE/M019764/1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the NERC-funded UK Energy Research Centre, by the NERC project Addressing the Valuation of Energy and Nature Together (ADVENT, NE/M019764/1) and by The University of California, Davis with CD the recipient of a NERC PhD studentship (1790094). It also contributed to the NERC FAB-GGR project (NE/M019691/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Comparative study of conceptual versus distributed hydrologic modelling to evaluate the impact of climate change on future runoff in unregulated catchments

The application of two distinctively different hydrologic models, (conceptual-HBV) and (distributed-BTOPMC), was compared to simulate the future runoff across three unregulated catchments of the Australian Hydrologic Reference Stations (HRSs) namely Harvey catchment in WA, Beardy and Goulburn catchments in NSW. These catchments have experienced significant runoff reduction during the last decades due to climate change and human activities. The Budyko-elasticity method was employed to assign the influences of human activities and climate change on runoff variations. After estimating the contribution of climate change in runoff reduction from the past runoff regime, the downscaled future climate signals from a multi-model ensemble of eight GCMs of the CMIP5 under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios were used to simulate the future daily runoff at the three HRSs for the mid-(2046–2065) and late-(2080–2099) 21st-century. Results show that the conceptual model performs better than the distributed model in capturing the observed streamflow across the three contributing catchments. The performance of the models was relatively compatible in the overall direction of future streamflow change, regardless of the magnitude, and incompatible regarding the change in the direction of high and low flows for both future climate scenarios. Both models predicted a decline in wet and dry season's streamflow across the three catchments

Predicting the distribution of the Asian tapir in Peninsular Malaysia using maximum entropy modeling

In 2008, the IUCN threat status of the Asian tapir (Tapirus indicus) was reclassified from 'vulnerable' to 'endangered'. The latest distribution map from the IUCN Red List suggests that the tapirs' native range is becoming increasingly fragmented in Peninsular Malaysia, but distribution data collected by local researchers suggest a more extensive geographical range. Here, we compile a database of 1261 tapir occurrence records within Peninsular Malaysia, and demonstrate that this species, indeed, has a much broader geographical range than the IUCN range map suggests. However, extreme spatial and temporal bias in these records limits their utility for conservation planning. Therefore, we used maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling to elucidate the potential extent of the Asian tapir's occurrence in Peninsular Malaysia while accounting for bias in existing distribution data. Our MaxEnt model predicted that the Asian tapir has a wider geographic range than our fine-scale data and the IUCN range map both suggest. Approximately 37% of Peninsular Malaysia contains potentially suitable tapir habitats. Our results justify a revision to the Asian tapir's extent of occurrence in the IUCN Red List. Furthermore, our modeling demonstrated that selectively logged forests encompass 45% of potentially suitable tapir habitats, underscoring the importance of these habitats for the conservation of this species in Peninsular Malaysia