Land Use: Human Needs Vs Ecosystem Effects
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Land Use: Human Needs vs Ecosystem Effects A revision of global consequences of land use change shows that modern land use practices cause extensive environmental damage with adverse implications for ecosystem services. Confronting the land use challenge will require the assessment and management of trade-offs between immediate human needs and long-term capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services. Changes in land use have been essential for humanity since they have enabled humans to meet their needs in terms of critical ecosystem services such as food, fibre, freshwater, and shelter. While the demand for such services continues to rise with growing human population and wealth, there is a potential risk that the resulting environmental impacts of land-cover modifications could finally reduce the very capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long run. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the main driver of ecological modifications and biodiversity loss at the global scale involves the long-term human-induced changes in land use. In this context, a group of scientists have discussed the global consequences of land use on food production, water resources, forests, regional climate, air quality and infectious diseases. Based on the revision of scientific data, they conclude that modern land-use practices, while increasing the short-term supplies of material goods may indeed undermine many ecosystem services (i.e. water balance and quality, global carbon and nitrogen cycle, biodiversity, degradation of soils…) in the long run, not only on local but also on regional and global scales. Furthermore, the authors have considered the challenge of reducing the negative environmental impacts of land-use practices while maintaining socio-economic benefits. They propose a simple conceptual framework for comparing land use and trade-offs of ecosystem services and point out that assessing inherent trade-offs between meeting human needs and maintaining the capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services will be crucial for the future management of the problem. On the other hand, the scientists argued that sustainable land use policies must focus on those landscape practices that increase the resilience of the managed ecosystem, i.e. practices that enhance its robustness to and/or recovery from disturbance. These include: 1) increased productivity per unit of land, fertilizer and water, 2) maintenance of soil organic matter, 3) increased green areas in urban landscapes, 4) “agroforestry” in the sense of nurturing multiple ecosystem services from agricultural systems, and 6) biodiversity and landscape management. They have also presented a list of success case studies and have concluded by highlighting the need for more cross-disciplinary research and more interactions among scientists and practitioners in order to efficiently deal with global adverse consequences of land use on overall ecosystem services. Source : Foley, J.A. et al. (2005) Global Consequences of Land Use, Science, 309(5734), 570-574. Contact : [email protected] Theme(s) : Land use 1 European Commission DG ENV News Alert issue 7 January, 2006 .