The land use-climate change-energy nexus
Abstract
Spatial patterns and processes of ecological and human interactions are being altered by both changing resource-management practices of humans and changing climate conditions associated, in part, with increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Dominant resource-extraction and land-management activities involve energy, and the use of fossil energy is one of the key drivers behind increasing greenhouse gas emissions as well as land-use changes. Alternative energy sources (such as wind, solar, nuclear, and bioenergy) are being explored to reduce greenhouse gas emission rates. Yet, energy production, including alternative-energy options, can have a wide range of effects on land productivity, surface cover, albedo, and other factors that affect carbon, water, and energy fluxes and, in turn, climate. Meanwhile, climate influences the potential output, relative efficiencies, and sustainability of alternative energy sources. Thus, land use, climate change, and energy choices are linked, and any comprehensive analysis in landscape ecology that considers one of these factors should be cognizant of these interactions. These interactions and their effects may become even more important as population increases. This analysis explores the implications of those linkages and points out ecological patterns and processes that may be affected by these interactions.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMPA32A..03D
- Keywords:
-
- 0402 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Agricultural systems;
- 1630 GLOBAL CHANGE / Impacts of global change;
- 4313 NATURAL HAZARDS / Extreme events