Strategies to Mitigate Pressures on Terrestrial Ecosystems from Multiple Stressors

Informations

Funding country

Norway

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2019

End date

12/31/2023

Budget

514,386 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Terrestrial ecosystems are sensitive to multiple stressors, such as land use, land use changes, and climate change. Many future scenarios of the IPCC envisage a future that will be even more reliant on terrestrial ecosystems to supply renewable energy and materials. Stressors from land use changes are potential trade-offs for ecosystem adaptation in stringent climate change mitigation scenarios. Terrestrial ecosystem stress is already manifesting in several parts of Norway and the Tibetan plateau of China, especially as a result of ongoing average and extreme temperature rise. MITISTRESS plans to map land uses and ecosystem stress levels under climate change in Norway and the Tibetan Plateau to quantify the cumulative effects on ecosystem services. The major stressors covered in the project are land use, driven by multiple societal demands, and climate change. The project will process satellite data, carry out fieldwork in the Tibetan Plateau of China, calibrate and run regional climate and ecosystem models to develop novel approaches to understand cumulative effects of multiple stressors on terrestrial ecosystems. MITISTRESS assessed recent land cover changes in Europe and their effects on regional climate, and highlighted the role of forest expansion on abandoned cropland as a main driver of local temperature cooling effects. The project has also produced a novel high resolution map of land cover types in Nordic countries with spatially explicit identification of annual forest harvest areas. This map is now the basis for the ongoing work in the project that aims to assess the effects of forest management on the climate system and ecosystem services. A study identified areas of abandoned and degraded cropland in the Nordic countries, and proposed cultivation of perennial grasses as a measure to simultaneously reduce soil erosion, increase ecosystem services degraded by agriculture, and mitigate climate change via increases in soil organic carbon and use of harvested biomass as energy carriers. The project has also investigated the historical relationship between multiple landscape services and their influencing factors, showing how climate change and human pressure affect the delivery of ecosystem services (soil retention, water yield, habitat quality, crop and livestock supply). Carbon sequestration and habitat quality show an overall positive sensitivity to climate change, although there is spatial variability. The analysis has also identified signs of continuous growth in the pressure from human activities on protected areas in the Tibetan Plateau, with the associated risks on their benefits. A mitigation role is found in protected area edges, which are effective options to secure vegetation greenness, cover, and productivity. Another analysis has investigated the role of protected areas as climate refugia to increase adaptation and resilience, with recommendations for their optimization. Additional information about the project and the publications are available upon request to the Principal Investigator.