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Bodirsky, B. L., Rolinski, S., Biewald, A., Weindl, I., Popp, A., & Lotze-Campen, H. (2015). Global Food Demand Scenarios for the 21st Century. PLoS One, 10(11), e0139201.
Abstract: Long-term food demand scenarios are an important tool for studying global food security and for analysing the environmental impacts of agriculture. We provide a simple and transparent method to create scenarios for future plant-based and animal-based calorie demand, using time-dependent regression models between calorie demand and income. The scenarios can be customized to a specific storyline by using different input data for gross domestic product (GDP) and population projections and by assuming different functional forms of the regressions. Our results confirm that total calorie demand increases with income, but we also found a non-income related positive time-trend. The share of animal-based calories is estimated to rise strongly with income for low-income groups. For high income groups, two ambiguous relations between income and the share of animal-based products are consistent with historical data: First, a positive relation with a strong negative time-trend and second a negative relation with a slight negative time-trend. The fits of our regressions are highly significant and our results compare well to other food demand estimates. The method is exemplarily used to construct four food demand scenarios until the year 2100 based on the storylines of the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). We find in all scenarios a strong increase of global food demand until 2050 with an increasing share of animal-based products, especially in developing countries.
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Popp, A., Humpenöder, F., Weindl, I., Bodirsky, B. L., Bonsch, M., Lotze-Campen, H., et al. (2014). Land-use protection for climate change mitigation. Nat. Clim. Change, 4(12), 1095–1098.
Abstract: Land-use change, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land, is a massive source of carbon emissions and contributes substantially to global warming(1-3). Therefore, mechanisms that aim to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation are widely discussed, A central challenge is the avoidance of international carbon leakage if forest conservation is not implemented globally’’, Here, We show that forest conservation schemes, even if implemented globally, could lead to another type of carbon leakage by driving cropland expansion in non-forested areas that are not subject to forest conservation schemes (non-forest leakage). These areas have a smaller. but still considerable potential to store carbon(5,6). We show that a global forest policy could reduce carbon emissions by 77 Gt CO2, but would still allow for decreases in carbon stocks of non-forest land by 96 Gt CO2, until 2100 due to non-forest leakage effects. Furthermore; abandonment of agricultural hand and associated carbon uptake through vegetation regrowth is hampered. Effective mitigation measures thus require financing structures and conservation investments that cover the full range of carbon-rich ecosystems. However, our analysis indicates that greater agricultural productivity increases would be needed to compensate for such restrictions on agricultural expansion.
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Weindl, I., Popp, A., Bodirsky, B. L., Rolinski, S., Lotze-Campen, H., Biewald, A., et al. (2017). Livestock and human use of land: Productivity trends and dietary choices as drivers of future land and carbon dynamics. Global And Planetary Change, 159, 1–10.
Abstract: Land use change has been the primary driving force of human alteration of terrestrial ecosystems. With 80% of agricultural land dedicated to livestock production, the sector is an important lever to attenuate land requirements for food production and carbon emissions from land use change. In this study, we quantify impacts of changing human diets and livestock productivity on land dynamics and depletion of carbon stored in vegetation, litter and soils. Across all investigated productivity pathways, lower consumption of livestock products can substantially reduce deforestation (47-55%) and cumulative carbon losses (34-57%). On the supply side, already minor productivity growth in extensive livestock production systems leads to substantial CO2 emission abatement, but the emission saving potential of productivity gains in intensive systems is limited, also involving trade-offs with soil carbon stocks. If accounting for uncertainties related to future trade restrictions, crop yields and pasture productivity, the range of projected carbon savings from changing diets increases to 23-78%. Highest abatement of carbon emissions (63-78%) can be achieved if reduced consumption of animal-based products is combined with sustained investments into productivity increases in plant production. Our analysis emphasizes the importance to integrate demand- and supply-side oriented mitigation strategies and to combine efforts in the crop and livestock sector to enable synergies for climate protection.
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Biewald, A., Rolinski, S., Lotze-Campen, H., Schmitz, C., & Dietrich, J. P. (2014). Valuing the impact of trade on local blue water. Ecol. Econ., 101, 43–53.
Abstract: International trade of agricultural goods impacts local water scarcity. By quantifying the effect of trade on crop production on grid-cell level and combining it with cell- and crop-specific virtual water contents, we are able to determine green and blue water consumption and savings. Connecting the information on trade-related blue water usage to water shadow prices gives us the possibility to value the impact of international food crop trade on local blue water resources. To determine the trade-related value of the blue water usage, we employ two models: first, an economic land- and water-use model, simulating agricultural trade, production and water-shadow prices and second, a global vegetation and agricultural model, modeling the blue and green virtual water content of the traded crops. Our study found that globally, the international trade of food crops saves blue water worth 2.4 billion US$. This net saving occurs despite the fact that Europe exports virtual blue water in food crops worth 3.1 billion US$. Countries in the Middle East and South Asia profit from trade by importing water intensive crops, countries in Southern Europe on the other hand export water intensive agricultural goods from water scarce sites, deteriorating local water scarcity. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Biewald, A. (2015). Climate dependent equilibrium model (Vol. 6).
Abstract: In the framework of AgMIP (Agricultural Model Intercomparison Project; www.agmip.org), several articles have been published in which about 10 leading, agro-economic models analysed the impact of climate change on agricultural yields, area, consumption and food prices (Lotze-Campen et al. 2014, Nelson et. al 2014a,b Schmitz et al. 2014). A part of these articles are available freely through the publisher (e.g. http://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3274). PIK has not only contributed through model simulations with the spatially explicit, agro-economic model MAgPIE, but also by coordinating this activity. Starting with AgMIP phase II in 2015, AgMIP has now for the first time conducted the model-analysis for different “Shared Socio-economic Pathways” (short SSPs). A first study has been published in the renowned journal “Environmental Research Letters” (Wiebe et al. 2015). These are important contributions to task 2.3 which aimed at simulating the impact of global climate changes on agricultural systems.Another study which is under revision in the journal PNAS, investigates the impact of climate change on agricultural welfare. The results of this paper are based on simulations with 20 different General Circulation Models (GCMs). This provides the opportunity to understand the uncertainty inherent in the different climate models better and improves the credibility of results.All mentioned articles and results are based on harmonized yield changes, which are a result of multi-model simulations, conducted in the framework of ISI-MIP (Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project) and coordinated at PIK. These model results are publicly available (www.isi-mip.org) and part of an open source strategy of the institute. The modelling group around the agro-economic model MAgPIE (Model of Agriculture and its Impact on the Environment) currently discusses an open source strategy for publishing the model code. As a first step, a detailed description of the model will be available shortly (http://redmine.pik-potsdam.de/projects/magpie/wiki).PIK and the modelling group around MAgPIE have also contributed to the geoportal GLUES (Global Assessment of Land Use Dynamics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Ecosystem Services) where project partners can publish and share global and regional data sets as well as model results on scenarios of land use, climate change and economic development. MAgPIE results on landuse change, emissions and deforestation for different socio-economic scenarios have been made available there (http://catalog-glues.ufz.de/terraCatalog/Start.do;jsessionid=80F6A3D2C446674B898881D0589887E4). No Label
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