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. 2024 May 29;14(1):12315.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-61035-0.

Projected patterns of land uses in Africa under a warming climate

Ibrahim Yahaya #  1   2 , Runhong Xu #  3 , Jian Zhou #  1 , Shan Jiang  1   4 , Buda Su  5 , Jinlong Huang #  1 , Jing Cheng  6 , Zhibo Dong  1 , Tong Jiang  7   8
Affiliations

Projected patterns of land uses in Africa under a warming climate

Ibrahim Yahaya et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Land-use change is a direct driver of biodiversity loss, projection and future land use change often consider a topical issue in response to climate change. Yet few studies have projected land-use changes over Africa, owing to large uncertainties. We project changes in land-use and land-use transfer under future climate for three specified time periods: 2021-2040, 2041-2060, and 2081-2100, and compares the performance of various scenarios using observational land-use data for the year 2020 and projected land-use under seven Shared Socioeconomic Pathways Scenarios (SSP): SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP4-3.4, SSP4-6.0 and SSP5-8.5 from 2015 to 2100 in Africa. The observational land-use types for the year 2020 depict a change and show linear relationship between observational and simulated land-use with a strong correlation of 0.89 (P < 0.01) over Africa. Relative to the reference period (1995-2014), for (2021-2040), (2041-2060), (2081-2100), barren land and forest land are projected to decrease by an average of (6%, 11%, 16%), (9%, 19%, 38%) respectively, while, crop land, grassland and urban land area are projected to increase by (36%, 58%, and 105%), (4%, 7% and 11%), and (139%, 275% and 450%) respectively. Results show a substantial variations of land use transfer between scenarios with major from barren land to crop land, for the whole future period (2015-2100). Although SSP4-3.4 project the least transfer. Population and GDP show a relationship with cropland and barren land. The greatest conversion of barren land to crop land could endanger biodiversity and have negative effects on how well the African continent's ecosystem's function.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Spatial distribution of land use types in 2020 (a) and (b) land use Areal types in square kilometres (km2) across Africa and its Regions.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Areal percentages changes in land use for the observational period (2020), over (a) Africa, (b) Northern Africa, (c) Sahara, (d) Western Africa, (e) Central Africa, (f) Eastern Africa and (g) Southern Africa for Waterbodies (Blue), Urban land (Red), Grassland (Yellow), Forestland (Geen).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Changes in land use area for the historical baseline period (1995–2014) and projections (2015–2100) averaged over (a) Africa, (b) Northern Africa, (c) Sahara, (d) Western Africa, (e) Central Africa, (f) Eastern Africa and (g) Southern Africa for Urban land (Red), Grassland (Yellow), Forestland (Geen), Cropland (Orange), and Barren land (Light Dark), for near-term (2021–2040), mid-term (2041–2060) and long-term (2081–2100) under SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP4-3.4, SSP4-6.0, and SSP5-8.5 Scenarios.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Land use transfers predicted for near-term (2021–2040), mid-term (2041–2060) and long-term (2081–2100) under SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP4-3.4, SSP4-6.0, and SSP5-8.5 Scenarios. The Urban land (Green), Grassland (Yellow), Forestland (Orange), Cropland (Red), and Barren land (Blue). Note: The colour of the arc represents the land use type, the colour of the chord represents the land use transfer type, and the width of the chord represents the land use transfer amount.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Spatial changes in the areas transferred in (km2) from barren land to crop land under different SSPs Scenarios (a) SSP1-1.9, (b) SSP1-2.6, (c) SSP2-4.5, (d) SSP3-7.0, (e) SSP4-3.4, (f) SSP4-6.0 and (g) SSP5-8.5 from (2015–2100) at the end of twenty-first century.
Figure 6
Figure 6
spatial changes in the areas transferred in (km2) from forestland to cropland under different SSPs Scenarios (a) SSP1-1.9, (b) SSP1-2.6, (c) SSP2-4.5, (d) SSP3-7.0, (e) SSP4-3.4, (f) SSP4-6.0 and (g) SSP5-8.5 from (2015–2100) at the end of twenty-first century.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Temporal changes in population (a), GDP (b), relative changes in population (c) and GDP (d) for reference period (2020), near-term (2021–2040), mid-term (2041–2060) and long-term (2081–2100) over Africa. Note: the population is in (million), and GDP is in (billion USD).
Figure 8
Figure 8
Map of Africa including six selected regions.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Methodological framework uses in this study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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