New land-use change scenarios for Brazil: Refining global SSPs with a regional spatially-explicit allocation model

Abstract

The future of land use and cover change in Brazil, particularly due to deforestation and forest restoration processes, is critical for the future of global climate and biodiversity, given the richness of its five biomes. These changes in Brazil depend on the interlink between global factors due to its role as one of the main exporters of commodities globally and the national to local institutional, socioeconomic, and biophysical contexts. Aiming to develop scenarios that consider the balance between global (e.g., GDP growth, population growth, per capita consumption of agricultural products, international trade policies, and climatic conditions) and local factors (e.g., land use, agrarian structure, agricultural suitability, protected areas, distance to roads, and other infrastructure projects), a new set of land-use change scenarios for Brazil were developed that aligned with the global structure Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCPs) developed by the global change research community. The narratives of the new scenarios align with SSP1/RCP 1.9 (Sustainable development scenario), SSP2/RCP 4.5 (Middle of the road scenario), and SSP3/RCP 7.0 (Strong inequality scenario). The scenarios were developed by combining the LuccME spatially explicit land change allocation modeling framework and the INLAND surface model to incorporate the climatic variables in water deficit. Based on detailed biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional factors for each biome in Brazil, we have created spatially explicit scenarios until 2050, considering the following classes: forest vegetation, grassland vegetation, planted pasture, agriculture, a mosaic of small land uses, and forestry. The results aim to detail global models regionally. They could be used regionally to support decision-making and enrich the global analysis.

Evaluating carbon and water fluxes and stocks in Brazil under changing climate and refined regional scenarios for changes in land use

“…We compare a sustainable development scenario with a pessimistic scenario (Table 1). According to Bezerra et al (2022), in the S1 scenario, in addition to respecting existing environmental laws, there is an incentive for restoration and preservation actions in order to reduce deforestation. In this scenario, like in other countries, Brazil would be moving toward a sustainable path and inclusive development that respects environmental limits, and investments would be mainly oriented toward the wellbeing of society and changes in consumption habits.…”

“…As input of land-use and land cover maps, we used the refined regional scenarios provided by Bezerra et al (2022), data available at https://zenodo.org/record/5123560#.YVJFzzlv80M (Bezerra et al, 2021), based on local socioeconomic driving factors using the LUCCME-BR model. LUCCME-BR is a tool developed at the INPE, which calculates the fraction of each of six uses per grid cell: forest vegetation, grassland vegetation, planted pasture, agriculture, mosaic of occupation, and forestry.…”

Scenarios of land use and land cover change in the Colombian Amazon to evaluate alternative post-conflict pathways

“…Scenarios of land use and land cover (LULC) change have been used as tools to support territorial planning decisions in regions of large tropical forests with the purpose of protecting biodiversity and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation 12 – 15 . LULC change scenarios are useful for visualizing and analyzing the effect of different developmental pathways, helping decision-makers to formulate scientific strategies and implement plausible policies that conserve natural ecosystems and provide ecosystem services 16 – 19 .…”

European scenarios for future biological invasions

“…These scenarios describe potential alternative future social, political, socio-economic and environmental developments, with a special focus on biological invasions. Applying global scenarios to individual geographical regions is, however, challenging, as their underlying assumptions do not account for regional contexts (Chen et al 2020, Bezerra et al 2022, Latombe et al in 2022.…”

“…These scenarios describe potential alternative future social, political, socio-economic and environmental developments, with a special focus on biological invasions. Applying global scenarios to individual geographical regions is, however, challenging, as their underlying assumptions do not account for regional contexts (Chen et al 2020, Bezerra et al 2022, Latombe et al in 2022). Therefore, downscaling global scenarios is essential to ensure that scenarios for specific regions incorporate both regionally important drivers and regional policy perspectives (Verburg et al 2006; Chen et al 2020).…”