Land Cover Land Use Change and Socioeconomic Influences on Terrestrial Carbon Production in a Southwest Michigan Watershed

The terrestrial carbon (C) cycle is an essential biogeochemical process for vegetation and ecosystem services, and its utility is posed as a potential climate change mitigation measure. It is well known how climate variables such as precipitation, drought and temperature have well-known influences on terrestrial carbon production. However, it is less known how this production varies with land cover land use change (LCLUC) in social-environmental systems (SES) over time. Examining the relative C contributions of LULCC within a landscape and their relationship with SES drivers will reveal how societal change (i.e., increases in agricultural intensification and urbanization) have affected landscape C production over time and space. In this work, we pose the following hypotheses to investigate whether there is a relationship between cropland management, abiotic stress, and net primary production (NPP) and how this relationship is associated with LULCC. We hypothesize that (H1) LULCC has a positive and direct association with landscape NPP, (H2) regional development has a strong influence on land management, and (H3) anthropogenic activities have a collectively higher and more influential direct impact on LULCC than abiotic stress drivers. Our theoretical construct investigates SES drivers' interrelationships and combined influences on NPP. We employ a partial least squares structural equation model (SEM) to identify the relationships between social, economic and ecological drivers concerning NPP in a cropland-forest-dominated landscape. We ask: (1) does LULCC contribute to increases in NPP; (2) do land management and LULCC have more combined influence than abiotic stressors on NPP; and (3) does regional development and land management jointly contribute to LULCC.