## Climate-Land Use/Land Cover Interactions Session

**Moderator- Tom Loveland**

# Speaker- Chris Justice 

# Panelists- Ruth DeFries, Connie Homes, Jayant Sathaye

# Ruth DeFries

Land cover effects on climate should be studied. Land cover change- e.g
abandonment of crop land- sequesters carbon, affects water resources-
water quality and quantity eg Chesapeake. It has been shown that
protecting watersheds is a viable option eg NY for water quality.
Linkages between land cover and human health are not well understood.
Deforestation in Peru led to increased malaria.

Destruction of habitat leads to species habitat loss. Effects of land
cover are seen at all scales. Local-water quality, regional-climate
feedbacks, global-ghg emissions. Causes for land cover changes include
land use, natural events, and climate change and variability.
Consequences: Climate forcing ghg, water resources, health, genetic
resources

This chapter appropriately identifies land cover change as a forcing.
Observations, consequences, projections are components. Ch 8 contains
these, but emphasis may be off. Strategic plan requires more thought on
linkages between projections and other elements.

Carbon linkages should be made. Land cover effects on climate, I urge
that ch8 considers how such questions will be addressed. May not be
addressed through linkages area. Is a separate element needed for land
cover? Yes, expertise is needed to quantify change and consequences

Results from many disciplines have show land cover change is an
important factor in global change.

**Connie Holmes**- Mining association, non legislative mining policy

Preface- far from expert in area of discussion, land cover change

Comes at strategic plan from view of policy, not expert in science. I
Represent coal metals and non metal producers- supporters of President's
climate initiative. Working as an industry to ensure results in
decreased intensity. We do change land when we operate, programs we take
part in enhance restoration also. Results of research will not only be
applicable to climate- land management planners, policy makers will use
it too. Overall structure of CCSP is good, will result in sound strategy
within not unlimited funds

Limited money will be steered in correct directions, better coordinated
research. Strength of program is that it recognizes new area of study.
This area is important building block, cross-cutting area, will help
economic, social, and climate needs. Goal of obtaining sustainable
future, considering social and economic variables. Stress that areas
should be kept in balance. As program looks to establish historical
state of knowledge, we have to go beyond US borders and look at other
countries. Why have changes been made in response to economic, social
processes. I agree that development of models with socio economic models
should be incorporated, but should incorporate technological advances.-
not enough consideration of technological advances- these will likely
outweigh other drivers. Research is very ambitious. Incorporates other
research programs that should be coordinated. If scale back has to be
considered, emphasize Ch. 8.

**Jayant Sathaye**- senior staff scientist, land cover mitigation, IPCC
report on forest, land cover

Had an opportunity to look at the draft and struck by comprehensiveness.
Seems to be in right order. Not really new questions that could be
added. Comments on level of emphasis on different questions

1)  Repeatedly each question asks for looking across spatial scales, but
    when resources are allocated, they are more often targeted to
    national and regional- US/ NA, but rest of the world neglected. How
    much do we really know about carbon sequestration potential?
    Linkages are global- need to look at globe to really know how much
    total sequestration there is- not a local question. Participated in
    IPCC, got stuck on issue of linkages. In a program of this magnitude
    linkages must be studies

2)  Temporal- 10 to 50 years, possible that die back will occur after 50
    years after forest has grown- need longer period to understand true
    effects on carbon sequestration. Temporal dimension should be
    extended

3)  Difficulty in answering questions- is question 3a ten times more
    difficult than 3c? We need to understand that to understand where
    our large challenges lie. Don't know from reading

4)  Impact of kinds of future climate management on land use and land
    cover change management. How would climate management effect land
    cover? This should be integrated into document

5)  How the research is organized. All the technical questions are layed
    out but how' will research be layed out? How will people have a say
    in how this work gets done? What's the process by which this takes
    place? We need inputs from those who are the drivers. Not just
    scientists working alone.

**10 til 3, 1hr 10 min for comments**

**Notes from discussion**

Hans Hans Geunter Brauch - University of Berlin

I agree with Chris Justice on the need for interdisciplinarity. Also, in
our research we need to specifically focus on semi-arid regions. You
should broaden the range to cover water resources, environmentally
induced migration, impact on hazards and interactions between hazards
and migration and influence this has on crisis and conflict in areas
like Middle East. If we look ahead we foresee nightmare of new
conflicts.

Chris Justice- I agree completely. Demographic changes and demands on
resources are important to consider. We need a participatory program,
regional scientists have expertise in those regions such as Semi-arid
regions, populations. Socio-economic changes and climate changes are
linked.

Tony Janetos- Heinz Institute

I have a comment on a balance issue that I have trouble understanding-
the degree to which research will be focused on domestic v.s. issues
outside of the US.

Chris Justice- We felt some pressure to focus on societal relevance to
tax payers and tried to balance that, but some issues require an
international focus- global issues are now effecting national security
now. Some agencies have domestic mandates and others have international-
USAID should be active partner in this element. Last decade could have
been stronger in international

Tom Loveland- Implementation will be key in deciding this

Dennis Ojima- Colorado State University

The plan is well formulated and well pulled-together. You could
strengthen the document by looking at changes in intensity of land use.
Look at greenhouse gases, intensification of nitrogen, and water use.
These issues of intensity will have an impact on land cover change
effects and interaction. What is vulnerability of land uses to climate
changes? Semi-arid and arctic regionshave unique vulnerability to
climate variability.

Tom Moore- Hoover institute

I am an Economist. I didn't see much attention to economics in the plan.
Land use is an economics issue, economists should be employed.
Allocation of land is an economic issue. Troubled by developing a
national land use plan- have I misunderstood this? Land use plan from
Washington isn't going to work. Troubled by looking forward to 50 years.
We can only predict the past. Recall predictions of being out of oil in
mid 80s... USGS said no oil to be found in future...

Pat Letholis? USGS, EDC

You pulled together a difficult task. This element is most closely tied
in to carbon and ecosystems and one way to improve the chapter would be
to tie-in related research questions. The IPCC put in parenthesis where
the tie-ins occurred. A specific example is the issue of species
composition- GIS data layers will be product of this element that use
discrete classifications of land cover, but there is a spectrum of
species composition within each classification. Ecosystems have
requirements for species data- species composition should be emphasized.

Lay Swanson- Gl Env. Tech.

There is a lack of focus on technology. Advances in technology and
climate management strategies were mentioned by more than one panelists-
there is some overlap there. I recommend that the plan focus in on the
impacts of technology and climate strategies.

Jayant Sathaye.. It is important to have some projections/scenarios in
order to understand implication to underlying implications- There is a
panel tomorrow looking at scenarios. Will those scenarios be detailed
enough to link climate change to technology, to research to land use
change?

Yun sin Son- UMBC

I was surprised to see a well organized strategic plan. I have a few
comments- seems that fundamental steps for doing this research is the
mapping. For the implementation plan mapping past and current land use
is important. I am not suggesting that some questions are more important
than others. Maybe switch 2^nd^ question to a priority to address other
research questions. Trained geographers at USGS abandoned scientific
mapping of invasives. I agree that economists really need to
participate. The results depend on which economic school. It's not just
an economic issue. Land ethics are also very important. It's difficult
to be objective. Biodiverstiy and other factors equally important. In
conventional economic theory it's not possible to quantify important
factors like biodivierstiy. Land ethics and planning is not including in
any research and it is equally important to these issues.

Tom Reilly- MIT

You need to tie together comments- it is an ambitious program and money
is tight. It is well described. But what are the strategic priorities of
this element? By being everything from local to global it takes on
hundreds of years of research on agriculture etc. The plan needs to
focus on climate change tie-ins. If there are limited funds, where is
the money directed?- how does the global change phenomena relate to
local land planning issues (Michigan land use planning example). Also,
where is the water link? I don't want to have to go out to 2020 to get
hydrological models linked in- water is a critical linkage, it should be
in there now.

Cynthia Salinger- NOAA

I have a land use question- in the Great Lakes Basin there are large
cities Detroit, etc and those areas are urban. Farms are becoming high
rises and run off is a huge problem as a result. Tax payers call me to
complain about sewer overflow. Questions- more water is running off due
to urbanization so more flooding and sewer water are entering the
system? This is unsanitary so with global climate change, the warming of
the climate will add to evaporation and water vapor in the air and lead
to more precipitation which will lead to more run off? The system can't
currently handle the water flow- is this something that might be in the
plan- what will happen to cities, drinking water, sewage systems?

Chris Justice- That's exactly what we're trying to address. Water
quality was pushed by EPA to be in the document. What's changing in
terms of land cover and then consequences? Is the research at the right
scale to address these question?

Jack Warden, USDA ARS

I saw carbon and water cycle mentioned, but I wonder if you have
considered the role of the nitrogen cycle? Nitrogen is closely linked to
carbon so it may be in there that way, but maybe nitrogen should be
explicitly mentioned. Nitrogen is linked with the spread of invasives,
sequestration, economics, and water quality. Nitrogen should be part of
this document.

Tom Loveland- There was a nitrogen related question, it got lost in
process

Louisa Thompson

Land use is determined by population growth and aesthetic preferences.
Can you treat these as variables instead of giving one projection for
the future? That way you can give policy makers information about where
to direct education etc. In the Chesapeake region green building going
on etc. due to targeted education in a vulnerable location. This can
happen if people are given information on relative impacts.

Gell Keller

Water is important- I want to reinforce that effects of water quantity
and quality will be large from land cover. For example, for a long time
we have been storing contaminants on landscape- when climate changes
these elements can be mobilized. Stress that the area of land-water
linkages is important.

Greg Schaeffer- NPS

This is a good plan. One thing that struck me is that it gives the
impression that we're dumber than we are. Sometimes the confidence
levels are not very large, but Dr. Defries gave some examples of what we
know. We need a document on what we know now. What is the technical
advice we can give now- sea level rise etc. NPS gets questions and we
would like to give out information. How can this be more relevant to
policy makers now, during the research endeavor?

Lindsey Mcullen- also NPS

We manage some of the remaining undisturbed ecosystems in the US.
Congress has given us a mandate to look at what they have and how it's
changing. We are interested in looking at climate change and how it
affects these undisturbed ecosystems. We have a "Vital signs" project,
looking at key signs of change in 30 regions of the US. We would like to
link up with plan and I want to encourage scientists to come to our
lands to look at change and forecast change. Would like to work with the
drafting group on the plan also.

Chris Justice- We had trouble getting into land use work at all
agencies, we really just scratched surface. Better coordination between
agencies would be key.

Virginia Dale- ONL

I was pleased to see this chapter. However, one of key problems is
trying to come up with global land use change, but it is a local
phenomena. The key research question is danced around- scale is
mentioned here and there but not dealt with. How do you deal with local
phenomena on global scale? Ecological modelers have put out key research
questions that are not in document. Feedback is another concern-
constraints such as land cover can constrain land use futures and this
is not addressed.

Charles Drummond- Nat'l Energy...?

This area could make great contributions to informing decision makers
and using information to address unintended consequences. Heard about
climate effects on land use. If 10 TW were renewable energy that would
be land surface equal to all agricultural lands- would have large impact
on land cover. This should be used to address 'if then' questions

Farely Barns

I was pleased to see this chapter separated out. It needs to be link to
Ch13 on education and outreach. Land use change is at the center of
people's lives. For any implementation of policy, people need more k-12
education to understand feedbacks and effects. The person on the street
will implement policy and not just policy makers. Stronger link to ch.
13 is needed.

Connie Malar-USFS

The forest service hasn't been a big player, but we are involved in a
lot of land management and would be a good partner. We have our own
interest in understanding historical land cover change. There is a need
to discern natural land and climate variation impacts. It is important
how natural and human effects get underscored.

Neil Leary- Stark

The challenge is matching data that looks at land cover from remote
sensing and marrying that to economic, social data. I encourage the
strategic plan to focus on infrastructure, on making merged data sets.
Merging satellite-based data sets together with those that are done by
political boundaries is a challenge.

Chris Justice- How we implement that is largely a question on the
international side- nationally we are well served by those data sets. On
data management side, we need to be at data management groups and state
need for socio-economic data as well.

Brett Arenal- state

Follow up on Neil's comment. Ground based data is not all quantitative.
Much of the data is qualitative and is difficult to combine with
quantitative data.

Louisa Thompson (again)

Natural changes in land cover are important. Global climate has been
warming for 18000 years. Oaks moved north 5000 years after because of
the heavy acorn seeds. Oaks have 1000 different insects that use it. Can
you look at this data? If climate warms we can assist the vegetation but
we don't know the microorganisms or insects that interact with
vegetation. Will they move with the vegetation? Is this addressed in the
plan?

CJ- I think if you look into ecosystems element of strategy and that
work will be there. Interest in adaptation and species composition are
addressed in ecosystems

Dennis Ojima

Fragmentation or patterning influences are important. Vulnerability of
urban vs agricultural landscapes. Land cover affects tropospheric ozone
production. NOx from urban areas combine with DOC from forests. Look at
feedbacks and climate variability in combination with land use.

Hans Geunter Brauch-

I have a methods comment. We need more integrated climate models where
land use change is incorporated. Best UC out 60 yrs? We need comparative
case studies . We need to link actions between causal sites of global
environmental change. Change to outcomes was mentioned before, the
impact on extreme weather events seen in 3^rd^ IPCC report. There is
nothing seen on environmental migration here. Can we link causal factors
and impacts to get decision support systems for policy makers to get
worst case scenarios and warn policy people? We need to know more to
develop political strategies.

Chris Justice- We need to consider scale of regional modeling- different
regions have different characteristics. One size fits all doesn't work
for models.

**Revisit Panel:**

Jayant Sathaye

The challenges brought up, including integrated modeling, are difficult
issues. We will also have perspective-of-discipline issues- a geographer
will have a different model from an economist, but we are not at that
stage yet. If there is a temperature increase, what does that mean in
terms of the movement of species and how does that affect agriculture
and land use change. We haven't mapped the globe with that information.
There are important gaps in knowledge.

Ruth Defries

One key issues was one of scaling and the need to address that
explicitly in the plan. How will socioeconomic scale match up to climate
model scale? Another point was ambitiousness of plan and need to in the
plan highlight some real challenges and priorities. Water resources was
brought up many times as an important issue for the future, so that's a
comment to come away with- we need to highlight key challenges to focus
on. Comments from USGS to specify linkages- each side could assume other
will take care of it, so should make sure linkages are clear between the
chapters.

Chris Justice- concerns- can we get the level of agency interaction
needed to have a balanced program? We tried to keep things broad and all
encompassing. How can we prioritize? Is a list of questions the best way
to proceed or do issues, data sets need highlighting? Comments have been
helpful- the working group felt that it was a best effort and could be
helped by this group getting involved. We need to start to frame science
and implementation plan to move forward. All of your issues and comments
will be addressed as best we can.

Tom Loveland- A lesson out of discussion is the comment that came up
several time about looking beyond our immediate community to other
federal agencies and academia. That kind of advice is helpful.

Dennis Ojima- What are the next steps? When will the white paper be
developed?

Tom Loveland- the summary document will begin revision process after Jan
13. Please submit your comments to the website in writing before that
date. Thank you all...