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- Title
Future Land Use/Land Cover Change Has Nontrivial and Potentially Dominant Impact on Global Gross Primary Productivity.
- Authors
Hou, Haiyan; Zhou, Bing‐Bing; Pei, Fengsong; Hu, Guohua; Su, Zhongbo; Zeng, Yijian; Zhang, Han; Gao, Yukun; Luo, Meng; Li, Xia
- Abstract
Anthropogenic land use/land cover (LULC) change alters terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP), the largest land‐atmosphere carbon exchanges. Identifying the impacts of LULC changes on future terrestrial GPP has been challenging due to the scarcity of standardized future LULC for ecosystem models. Here, we present eight scenario‐based projections of global spatially explicit LULC at 1‐km resolution over the period 2015–2100 with a Future Land Use Simulation model—consistent with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and Representative Concentration Pathways. Twenty computational experiments with different LULC patterns, climate forcing, and CO2 concentrations were conducted to quantify their contributions to future GPP dynamics. Results show that the global terrestrial GPP would decline in the 21st century in most LULC scenarios due to urbanization, agricultural expansion, and deforestation. Moreover, the contribution of LULC changes to global GPP dynamics ranges from 3.43% to 10.78% when CO2 fertilization effect (CFE) is not modeled during 2000–2100 (7%–9% of the terrestrial area is dominated by LULC change). However, this value may range from 10.92% to 16.16% during 2000–2050 and 1.41%–14.57% during 2050–2100. The contribution of LULC even reached 56.08% during 2050–2100 in Southeast Asia due to deforestation. Despite the relatively important role of LULC to GPP dynamics, it becomes trivial globally when incorporating CFE into the model (i.e., LULC accounts for 1.24%–2.51% during 2000–2100). Our findings emphasize the strategic role of CFE in enhancing global GPP and highlight the quantitatively nontrivial role of LULC at the regional scale. Plain Language Summary: Efforts to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration can be achieved through plant photosynthesis, known as gross primary productivity (GPP). However, the human‐induced land use/land cover (LULC) change has reshaped the land surface since the industrial revolution, which is critical in contributing to regional or global GPP dynamics. Currently, there is still no agreement on the role of LULC change in affecting GPP compared with climate change and CO2 fertilization effect (CFE). To address this issue, we conducted a series of experiments to explore the impact of future LULC change on global GPP dynamics in comparison with climate change and CFE by linking a land use model to a process‐based model. We found that CFE would play the dominant role in shaping future global GPP dynamics, contrasting to which the impact of LULC change seems trivial globally. However, compared with climate change, LULC change is by no means trivial—because LULC‐change‐dominated areas of GPP change could account for at least 7% of the terrestrial Earth. Our findings help improve the understanding of the relative roles of LULC change, climate change, and CFE in driving GPP dynamics, and highlight LULC‐relevant action imperatives from both spatial and temporal perspectives. Key Points: A scenario‐based land use/land cover data set throughout the 21st century is presented, which is applicable for most land surface modelsFuture global terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) would decline with the impact of land cover changes in most Shared Socioeconomic Pathway‐Representative Concentration Pathway scenariosCompared with climate change, future land use change may dominate the GPP dynamics at the regional scale
- Publication
Earth's Future, 2022, Vol 10, Issue 9, p1
- ISSN
2328-4277
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2021EF002628