Projected land-use change impacts on ecosystem services in the United States

Abstract

Providing food, timber, energy, housing, and other goods and services, while maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity that underpin their sustainable supply, is one of the great challenges of our time. Understanding the drivers of land-use change and how policies can alter land-use change will be critical to meeting this challenge. Here we project land-use change in the contiguous United States to 2051 under two plausible baseline trajectories of economic conditions to illustrate how differences in underlying market forces can have large impacts on land-use with cascading effects on ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project a large increase in croplands (28.2 million ha) under a scenario with high crop demand mirroring conditions starting in 2007, compared with a loss of cropland (11.2 million ha) mirroring conditions in the 1990s. Projected land-use changes result in increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields, and >10% decreases in habitat for 25% of modeled species. We also analyze policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover and natural landscapes and reduce urban expansion. Although these policy scenarios modify baseline land-use patterns, they do not reverse powerful underlying trends. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use change trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision.

Keywords: amphibians; at-risk birds; econometric model; game species; incentives.

Fig. 1.

Spatial patterns in land cover in 2001 and changes between 2001 and 2051 under two baseline scenarios, 1990s trends and high crop demand, for crops (A), pasture (B), forest (C), urban (D), and range (E).

Fig. 2.

Projected changes between 2001 and 2051 under the two baseline scenarios for (A) land cover, (B) food production, (C) carbon storage, (D) timber production, and area of prime habitat for different groups of wildlife species (E–H). The bars in A–D display the difference between 2051 and 2001 with labels for changes greater than 1%. Bars in E–H show the number of species in each of three categories: lose >10% of prime habitat area, little/no change in prime habitat area (−10% to +10%), and gain >10% in prime habitat area. In addition the median percent change across species in each group, by baseline scenario, is shown in E–H.

Fig. 3.

(A–E) Spatial patterns in land cover changes under the three conservation policy scenarios (forest incentives, natural habitats, and urban containment) relative to projections based on the 1990s trends baseline scenario.

Fig. 4.

Projected changes under the three conservation policy scenarios (forest incentives, natural habitats, and urban containment) relative to projections based on the1990s Trends scenario for (A) land cover, (B) food production, (C) carbon storage, (D) timber production, and area of prime habitat for different groups of wildlife species (E–H). The bars in A–D display the difference between the policy scenarios and 1990s trends projection as of 2051, with labels for changes greater than 1%. Bars in E–H show the increase or decrease in the number of species in the categories (defined in Fig. 2) under each policy scenario compared with 1990s trends baseline scenario.