-
Invited Review: Quantifying surface albedo and other direct biogeophysical climate forcings of forestry activities
-
By altering fluxes of heat, momentum, and moisture exchanges between the land surface and atmosphere, forestry and other land-use activities affect climate. Although long recognized scientifically as being important, these so-called biogeophysical forcings are rarely included in climate policies for forestry and other land management projects due to the many challenges associated with their quantification. Here, we review the scientific literature in the fields of atmospheric science and terrestrial ecology in light of three main objectives: (i) to elucidate the challenges associated with quantifying biogeophysical climate forcings connected to land use and land management, with a focus on the forestry sector; (ii) to identify and describe scientific approaches and/or metrics facilitating the quantification and interpretation of direct biogeophysical climate forcings; and (iii) to identify and recommend research priorities that can help overcome the challenges of their attribution to specific land-use activities, bridging the knowledge gap between the climate modeling, forest ecology, and resource management communities. We find that ignoring surface
biogeophysics may mislead climate mitigation policies, yet existing metrics are unlikely to be sufficient. Successful metrics ought to (i) include both radiative and nonradiative climate forcings; (ii) reconcile disparities between biogeophysical and biogeochemical forcings, and (iii) acknowledge trade-offs between global and local climate benefits. We call for more coordinated research among terrestrial ecologists, resource managers, and coupled climate modelers to harmonize datasets, refine analytical techniques, and corroborate and validate metrics that are more amenable to analyses at the scale of an individual site or region.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Management Capacity - Federal DOI Agencies
-
Management capacity that lies within Dept. of Interior agencies.
Located in
Resources
/
General Resources Holdings
/
AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
-
Management Capacity - Federal Non-DOI Agencies
-
Management capacity that lies within Federal agencies outside the Dept. of Interior.
Located in
Resources
/
General Resources Holdings
/
AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
-
Management Capacity - NGOs
-
Management capacity that resides within non-government organizations within the AppLCC.
Located in
Resources
/
General Resources Holdings
/
AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
-
Management Capacity - Regional Partnerships
-
Management capacity that resides within existing formal Partnerships such as Joint Ventures, Fish Habitat Partnerships, and others.
Located in
Resources
/
General Resources Holdings
/
AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
-
Management Capacity - States
-
Conservation Management capacity residing within State agencies of the AppLCC region.
Located in
Resources
/
General Resources Holdings
/
AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
-
Management Capacity - Tribal Nations
-
Management Capacity that resides within Tribes or Tribal Associations.
Located in
Resources
/
General Resources Holdings
/
AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
-
Scenarios of future land use change around United States’ protected areas
-
Land use change around protected areas can diminish their conservation value, making it important to
predict future land use changes nearby. Our goal was to evaluate future land use changes around protected
areas of different types in the United States under different socioeconomic scenarios. We analyzed
econometric-based projections of future land use change to capture changes around 1260 protected
areas, including National Forests, Parks, Refuges, and Wilderness Areas, from 2001 to 2051, under different
land use policies and crop prices. Our results showed that urban expansion around protected areas
will continue to be a major threat, and expand by 67% under business-as-usual conditions.
Concomitantly, a substantial number of protected areas will lose natural vegetation in their surroundings.
National land-use policies or changes in crop prices are not likely to affect the overall pattern of land use,
but can have effects in certain regions. Discouraging urbanization through zoning, for example, can
reduce future urban pressures around National Forests and Refuges in the East, while the implementation
of an afforestation policy can increase the amount of natural vegetation around some Refuges throughout
the U.S. On the other hand, increases in crop prices can increase crop/pasture cover around some protected
areas, and limit the potential recovery of natural vegetation. Overall, our results highlight that future
land-use change around protected areas is likely to be substantial but variable among regions and
protected area types. Safeguarding the conservation value of protected areas may require serious consideration of threats and opportunities arising from future land use.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
