Land-use futures in the shared socio-economic pathways

In the future, the land system will be facing new intersecting challenges. While food demand, especially for resource-intensive livestock based commodities, is expected to increase, the terrestrial system has large potentials for climate change mitigation through improved agricultural management, providing biomass for bioenergy, and conserving or even enhancing carbon stocks of ecosystems. However, uncertainties in future socio-economic land use drivers may result in very different land-use dynamics and consequences for land-based ecosystem services. This is the first study with a systematic interpretation of the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs) in terms of possible land-use changes and their consequences for the agricultural system, food provision and prices as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, five alternative Integrated Assessment Models with distinctive land-use modules have been used for the translation of the SSP narratives into quantitative projections. The model results reflect the general storylines of the SSPs and indicate a broad range of potential land-use futures with global agricultural land of 4900 mio ha in 2005 decreasing by 743 mio ha until 2100 at the lower (SSP1) and increasing by 1080 mio ha (SSP3) at the upper end. Greenhouse gas emissions from land use and land use change, as a direct outcome of these diverse land-use dynamics, and agricultural production systems differ strongly across SSPs (e.g. cumulative land use change emissions between 2005 and 2100 range from −54 to 402 Gt CO₂). The inclusion of land-based mitigation efforts, particularly those in the most ambitious mitigation scenarios, further broadens the range of potential land futures and can strongly affect greenhouse gas dynamics and food prices. In general, it can be concluded that low demand for agricultural commodities, rapid growth in agricultural productivity and globalized trade, all most pronounced in a SSP1 world, have the potential to enhance the extent of natural ecosystems, lead to lowest greenhouse gas emissions from the land system and decrease food prices over time. The SSP-based land use pathways presented in this paper aim at supporting future climate research and provide the basis for further regional integrated assessments, biodiversity research and climate impact analysis.     

A physically-based model of long-term food demand

Reducing hunger while staying within planetary boundaries of pollution, land use and fresh water use is one of the most urgent sustainable development goals. It is imperative to understand future food demand, the agricultural system, and the interactions with other natural and human systems. Studying such interactions in the long-term future is often done with Integrated Assessment Modelling. In this paper we develop a new food demand model to make projections several decades ahead, having 46 detailed food categories and population segmented by income and urban vs rural. The core of our model is a set of relationships between income and dietary patterns, with differences between regions and income inequalities within a region. Hereby we take a different, more long-term-oriented approach than elasticity-based macro-economic models (Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) and Partial Equilibrium (PE) models). The physical and detailed nature of our model allows for fine-grained scenario exploration. We first apply the model to the newly developed Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP) scenarios, and then to additional sustainable development scenarios of food waste reduction and dietary change. We conclude that total demand for crops and grass could increase roughly 35–165% between 2010 and 2100, that this future demand growth can be tempered more effectively by replacing animal products than by reducing food waste, and that income-based consumption inequality persists and is a contributing factor to our estimate that 270 million people could still be undernourished in 2050.     

Towards a collaborative global land cover information service

ABSTRACT

The need and critical importance of global land cover and change information has been well recognized. Although rich collection of such information has been made available, the lack of necessary information services to support its easy access, analysis and validation makes it difficult to find, evaluate, select and reuse them through well-designed workflows. Aiming at promoting the development of the needed global land cover information services, this paper presents a conceptual framework for developing a Collaborative Global Land Cover Information Service (CoGland), followed by discussions on its implementation strategies. The framework supports connected and shared land cover and change web services around the world to address resource sharing, community service and cross-board collaboration needs. CoGland can benefit several recent international initiatives such as Future Earth, and many societal benefit areas. The paper further proposes that CoGland be developed within the framework of the Group on Earth Observations with the support of a number of key organizations such as the United Nations Expert Committee on Global Geospatial Information Management, the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, and International Society of Digital Earth. It is hoped that this paper can serve as a starting point for further discussions on CoGland developments.     

Analysis of food retail patterns in urban,peri-urban and rural settings: A case study from Lebanon

Existing evidence on food retail expansion in developing countries is largely based on cross-country studies. This may be excellent to provide general pictures but less relevant for development planners to tailor context-specific interventions. We apply a meso-level analysis to address three questions: (i) Are modern food retail formats impeding the expansion of the traditional ones? (ii) What is the pattern of food retail expansion into urban, peri-urban, and rural areas? (iii) What factors influence observed food retail patterns? The study was carried out within the geographic landscape of Lebanon, a commercial link between the Middle East and Europe. Historical analysis shows increased growth both in the modern and traditional food retail sales, with the former modestly outpacing the latter. However, data from the last five years indicate the gap being reduced to 2 percentage points, displaying a clear leveling-off as compared to the preceding decade. Thus, we find insufficient evidence to conclude that modern food retail formats are definitively replacing traditional ones. An extremely high spatial disparity in food retail concentration is observed across governorates and districts, suggesting a need for flexible policies for viable food system development in various contexts. Expansion of modern food retail formats is limited by geography or socioeconomic groups, while traditional formats are equally present in urban, peri-urban and rural settings, including high poverty areas. This suggests a need for recognizing the latter as alternative institutions to address specific needs of consumers, particularly in poorer neighborhoods or rural areas. The findings are relevant for international, regional, and domestic food retailers to understand food retail patterns in Lebanon, for development planners to tailor specific interventions in areas where food establishments are least developed, and for researchers to investigate the impact of such patterns on nutritional transformations among the Lebanese urban, peri-urban and rural populations.     

A comparison of raster-based travel time surfaces against vector-based network calculations as applied in the study of rural food deserts

While the term food insecurity is gaining popularity in contemporary literature, there is debate as to how tenets of this phenomenon can be quantitatively measured. One of these tenets, proximity to food resources, which is used to measure food deserts, can be measured within a digital GIS (Geographic Information System). Metrics such as Euclidean and network distance represent planimetric distance measurements between locations and resources, but do not truly represent the empirical cost that serves as a barrier, most notably time and/or money, to those who must decide to travel to these resources. While the vector data model has been the standard by which these calculations are done within a GIS, raster-based travel time surfaces can serve as a faster, replicable and scalable alternative. However, little research has been done to test the efficacy of these surfaces and their alignment with vector-based network calculations. In this research, we developed two travel-time surfaces for a rural region in southeastern North Carolina. One represented travel times to grocery stores and while the other represented travel time to convenience stores. We found that the travel times derived from this surface were statistically consistent with vector-based counterparts for sample sizes at a 95% confidence. When utilized correctly using an appropriate scale and spatial resolution, these surfaces have the potential to be effective tools in the study of food deserts.     

基于GeoNames和Solr的地名数据全文检索

地名数据是一种重要的地理信息资源,目前我国的地名数据库建设多局限于国内地名,缺少国外数据。传统地名数据的检索多为关键字查询,查询效率低且无法用于复杂地名查询。文中提出一种基于开源地名数据库GeoNames和开源搜索引擎Solr的地名数据全文检索方法,通过分析GeoNames的数据类型和结构,构建MySQL地名数据库,并利用Solr建立地名索引,提供基于Web服务的地名数据全文检索。实验表明,基于Solr的地名数据全文检索能够显著提高地名数据检索效率,对于复杂地名查询,也能进行有效地检索。     

Environmental controls on food web regimes: A fluvial perspective

Because food web regimes control the biomass of primary producers (e.g., plants or algae), intermediate consumers (e.g., invertebrates), and large top predators (tuna, killer whales), they are of societal as well as academic interest. Some controls over food web regimes may be internal, but many are mediated by conditions or fluxes over large spatial scales. To understand locally observed changes in food webs, we must learn more about how environmental gradients and boundaries affect the fluxes of energy, materials, or organisms through landscapes or seascapes that influence local species interactions. Marine biologists and oceanographers have overcome formidable challenges of fieldwork on the high seas to make remarkable progress towards this goal. In river drainage networks, we have opportunities to address similar questions at smaller spatial scales, in ecosystems with clear physical structure and organization. Despite these advantages, we still have much to learn about linkages between fluxes from watershed landscapes and local food webs in river networks. Longitudinal (downstream) gradients in productivity, disturbance regimes, and habitat structure exert strong effects on the organisms and energy sources of river food webs, but their effects on species interactions are just beginning to be explored. In fluid ecosystems with less obvious physical structure, like the open ocean, discerning features that control the movement of organisms and affect food web dynamics is even more challenging. In both habitats, new sensing, tracing and mapping technologies have revealed how landscape or seascape features (e.g., watershed divides, ocean fronts or circulation cells) channel, contain or concentrate organisms, energy and materials. Field experiments and direct in situ observations of basic natural history, however, remain as vital as ever in interpreting the responses of biota to these features. We need field data that quantify the many spatial and temporal scales of functional relationships that link environments, fluxes and food web interactions to understand how they will respond to intensifying anthropogenic forcing over the coming decades.     

Seasonal Changes in Nano/Micro-Zooplankton Herbivory and Heterotrophic Nano-Flagellates Bacterivory off Cape Esan, Southwestern Hokkaido, Japan

Seasonal changes in nano/micro-zooplankton grazing on pico-, nano- and micro-size phytoplankton and heterotrophic nano-flagellates (HNF) feeding on heterotrophic bacteria were quantified by the dilution technique in the surface layer off Cape Esan, southwestern Hokkaido, Japan. Pico- and nano-size phytoplankton were major components throughout the year except in spring when a diatom bloom was observed. Although there was little seasonal variation in bacteria and HNF biomass throughout the year, the micro-zooplankton biomass varied appreciably with a peak in spring. Nano/micro-zooplankton grazing or feeding on pico-size chl-a and bacteria were well balanced throughout the year. However, nano-size and micro-size chl-a growth were much greater than grazing in summer. Nano/micro-zooplankton ingestion of phytoplankton was greater than their ingestion of bacteria almost throughout the year, which suggests phytoplankton are more important as food sources of nano/micro-zooplankton in microbial food webs off Cape Esan than bacteria off Cape Esan. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Stable isotope analysis of Pacific salmon: insight into trophic status and oceanographic conditions over the last 30 years

Food web interactions and the response of Pacific salmon to physical processes in the North Pacific Ocean over interannual and interdecadal timescales are explored using naturally occurring stable isotope ratios of carbon (¹³C/¹²C) and nitrogen (¹⁵N/¹⁴N). Stable isotope analyses of five species of sexually mature North Pacific salmon from Alaska (Oncorhynchus spp.) cluster into three groups: chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) have the highest values, followed by coho (O. kisutch), with chum (O. keta), sockeye (O. nerka), and pink (O. gorbuscha) together having the lowest values. Although detailed isotopic data on salmon prey are lacking, there are limited data on relevant prey items from areas in which they are found in high abundance. These data suggest that the characteristics of the sockeye, pink and chum we have analyzed are compatible with their diets including open ocean squid and zooplankton, which are in general agreement with stomach content analyses. Isotope relationships between muscle and scale show consistent relationships for both δ¹³C (R²=0.98) and δ¹⁵N (R²=0.90). Thus, scales, which have been routinely archived for many systems, can be used for retrospective analyses. Archived sockeye salmon scales spanning 1966–1999 from Red Lake, Kodiak Island, Alaska were analyzed for their stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen. The δ¹⁵N record displays a decreasing trend of ˜3‰ from 1969–1982 and an increasing trend of ˜3‰ from 1982–1992, while the variations in δ¹³C are relatively minor. These trends may result from factors such as shifts in trophic level of feeding and/or feeding location, or may originate at the base of the food web via changes in processes such as nutrient cycling or primary productivity. Detailed studies on prey isotopic variability and its controls are needed to distinguish between these factors, and thus to improve the use of stable isotope analysis as a tool to learn more about present and past ecosystem change in the North Pacific and its relation to climatic change.     

Design and Implementation of a Distributed GIS Portal for Oil Spill and Harmful Algal Bloom Monitoring in the Marine Environment

A web-based distributed system for monitoring and forecasting of the marine environment has been developed in line with INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe (INSPIRE) and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) recommendations for a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). This system, called DISPRO, enables integration and distribution of multi-source data from satellites, aircraft, and in situ instruments, as well as results from numerical models. Geographic data and metadata are stored on a set of distributed computer nodes and retrieved and integrated by a web GIS client by means of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Server (WMS) technologies. A profile of ISO 19115 was developed for metadata handling, using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) as a platform independent encoding mechanism. DISPRO has been demonstrated in six European coastal zone and ocean regions in the spring and summer of 2005. The overall positive experiences of both service providers and end users indicate that the system should be further developed into an operational GMES service.