Current challenges of implementing anthropogenic land-use and land-cover change in models contributing to climate change assessments

Prestele, Reinhard; Arneth, Almut; Bondeau, Alberte; de Noblet-Ducoudré, Nathalie; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Sitch, Stephen; Stehfest, Elke; Verburg, Peter H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-369-2017

Articles | Volume 8, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-369-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-369-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 2

Short communication

|

23 May 2017

Short communication |

| 23 May 2017

Current challenges of implementing anthropogenic land-use and land-cover change in models contributing to climate change assessments

Reinhard Prestele, Almut Arneth, Alberte Bondeau, Nathalie de Noblet-Ducoudré, Thomas A. M. Pugh, Stephen Sitch, Elke Stehfest, and Peter H. Verburg

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Final revised paper (published on 23 May 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 31 Aug 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review', Alan Di Vittorio, 03 Nov 2016
RC2: 'Review esd-2016-39: Current challenges of implementing land-use and land-cover change in climate assessments', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Nov 2016
RC3: 'Review of Prestele et al., “Current challenges of implementing land-use and land-cover change in climate assessments”', Anonymous Referee #3, 23 Nov 2016
AC1: 'Reply to all referee comments', Reinhard Prestele, 15 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (28 Dec 2016) by Rui A. P. Perdigão

AR by Reinhard Prestele on behalf of the Authors (07 Feb 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Feb 2017) by Rui A. P. Perdigão

RR by Alan Di Vittorio (03 Mar 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of esd-2016-39-R1:
Current challenges of implementing anthropogenic land-use and land-cover change in models contributing to climate change assessments

The authors have done a tremendous job of revising this manuscript. It is better organized, more clear and consistent, and overall a very good paper that explains, demonstrates, and proposes advances to three major challenges of global lulcc in the context of earth system modeling. The authors responded very well to all the reviewers’ comments, and I don’t have any major concerns with this version. I suggest some minor clarifications/edits below, and am looking forward to seeing this paper published soon.

specific suggestions/comments:

Introduction

page 3, lines 13-16:
This sentence is awkward. Should there be an “and” in place of the comma between “studies” and “reviews” (two serial clauses), or is there a third serial clause associated with “…in the context…” that needs a verb?
It also may be helpful to state the three challenges here.

Challenge 1

page 3, line 26:
“e.g.” is not needed here. If you are concerned that this implies that nothing else can ‘jump,’ you can try something like “Corresponding jumps in carbon and nutrient…”

page 4, line 5:
Figure 1 doesn’t really illustrate this point (it may work better for the next sentence). More appropriate would be table of the independent data sets (refer to Table S1 and maybe add the future projections to it?).

page 4, lines 32-33:
Awkward sentence. If it is ‘within’ the data, how is it not considered?

page 5, line 20:
“…amounts…”

page 6, line 2:
“providing land-use data to climate models” isn’t necessary here

Challenge 2

page 7, lines 10-11:
This more general definition does not make sense to me. Just because an area change is not included in a product does not mean it is a gross change. It could be that a particular category is not represented, which is different than a gross change.

page 8, line 6:
Is there a context for this 40-year period? Is it based on current day statistics/assumptions? Is it a projection of historical baselines? Is it a future projection?

Challenge 3

page 11, line 19:
Is this the same simulation as above?

page 13, lines 8-14:
This seems incomplete, and the example given is likely not universal, and is not correct depending on the maps in question.
First of all, there are more cases: exact match, lu ag on natural lc, lc ag on natural lu, and spatial combinations/redistributions of the latter two.
It would seem that transition matrices would work best with the exact match, and would pose challenges for all other cases. But the result (in terms of which cover to convert) of applying of the matrices to the mismatched land cover in each cell would be dependent on the given transitions and land use/cover in each cell, even if using a single set of rules to apply the matrices (these rules will also have uncertainty).

Recommendations

page 15, lines 4-5:
This isn’t necessarily the case if the DGVM is designed to accommodate integrated land cover and land use dynamics.

Outlook

page 15, lines 9-17:
The introduction of the ‘offline’ strategy is a bit confusing here, especially since the next sentence does not explain it, but rather asks for an integrated framework. It sounds like you refer the ‘ways forward’ as the decoupled strategy, then want to discuss ‘offline’ coupling which needs to be defined here, all leading up to full integration. Maybe the topic sentence should present this progression, then the text can walk through each in turn. Currently, the “land use, land cover and the climate system…” sentence is out of place.

page 15, line 17:
I recommend the terminology of “preliminary results of the iESM.” The “first” results, based on a completed feedback coupling experiment, are still in in review.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (13 Mar 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

esd-2016-39

The authors have made considerable improvements during the revision phase and the comments from my first review were addressed satisfactory. The current manuscript is now better structured and much clearer also to ‘non-specialists’ in this field.
Based on my current review, I suggest minor revisions in which the comments below should be addressed before the paper could be accepted for publication.

General Comments:
I would like to ask the authors to make sure that it will be clear throughout the manuscript that the content of this paper is based on the authors’ opinion (e.g. with regard to the challenges and reasons for the difficulties are and how to they could be overcome).
In the manuscript, many different acronyms are being used which are difficult to recall throughout the paper. As the journal is aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, I suggest that the authors add a list of acronyms to the supplementary information and mention the existence of such a list in the introduction section of the paper.
I suggest using Roman numerals throughout the text to identify the three Challenges and to distinguish the challenges from section numbers. E.g. The caption for the second P3 L19 would then read ‘2 Challenge I: Spatial explicit …‘
Instead of just saying ‘for details see SI’ or similar when refereeing to the Supplementary Information, please provide the section number within the SI to make it easier for the reader too find the information.

Specific Comments:
P1L23-25: Please split this long sentence.
P1L29: suggest replacing ‘due to’ with ‘associated with’.
P1L30-31: Can you provide some more elaboration on what the ‘allocation strategy’ entails, as this might not be clear from the abstract.
P2L17: Maybe add ‘effected’ before ‘land’
P2L21: ‘the short history’, please add details what ‘short’ entails (e.g. since when)
P2L21: please add examples what ‘external data’ are.
P2L22: ‘… short history …’ … ‘…along with…’ … ‘…led to issues that render… ’ … ‘… uncertain’. This sentence is not clear to me; how can the points mention ‘render’ something ‘uncertain’. Please consider rephrasing.
P2L27: Pease specify what an ‘‘offline’ coupling’ entails.
P3L27: ‘reliably determining’ please consider rephrasing
P4L23: ‘Smoothly connected’; what does this mean, is this similar to Figure1? Please elaborate.
P4L26 ‘the harmonization’; which one? LUH?
P4L32-32: … ‘serves as a basis to implement anthropogenic impact on … Please consider rephrasing
P5L23: Consider rephrasing the sentence.
P6L17: Please specify what ‘cropland development’ is.
P6L19: How were these projections derived? Please clarify where they come from (i.e. reference or refer to section in SI)
P7L31: ‘meaning that …?... many are’ I think there is a word missing.
P9L10: replace ‘larger’ with ‘longer’
P10L8: Please elaborate in more detail what ‘through soils’ means.
P10L29: ‘They’? Who? Gibbs? Please clarify.
P11L6: Please elaborate in what these products are better.
P11L15: What are ‘neighborhood effects’?
P12L4: replace ‘complex interplays’ with ‘the complex interplay’
P13L8: move the reference at the end of the sentence.
P13L10: Please check the grammar of the sentence.
P13L20: To make things even more clear, I suggest restating the three sources again.
P13L22: replace ‘impact’ with ‘influence’ or ‘change’
P13L24-26: Move the last part of the sentence to the beginning.
P14L18: Remove ‘our’
P14L26-18: Split sentence.
P15L3: Please rephrase ‘have to ensure to use’
P15L14: please replace ‘very large level of uncertainties’ with a more appropriate phrase.

Figures:
Figure1: Please provide information for the interdisciplinary audience how the spatial patterns are being distorted. Maybe with a schematic showing grid cells or discuss more explicit in the text.
Figure2: due to the different values of the Initial variations it is impossible to properly compare the values shown in the right bar plots for different regions. To make the bar plots comparable I suggest adding the % in the categories or normalising the values shown on the right by the initial value before generating the bar plots on the right.
Figure 3: add to caption that this is based on singe model.
Figure 4: To make the values of the individual bars comparable, I suggest showing annual averages instead of sums over periods of different length.

Supplementary Information Section:
P5L14: Please add reference to the ‘Akaike information criterion’.
P7L16: Please add correct Reference.
P15L1, P26Tabel3 and P18FigureS3: The category ‘unvegetated fist’ is not shown in Figure 5 and Figure S4. Please either add this category to the Figures or give detailed reasons why this is not shown
P18FigureS3: Please use same colours for the classifications as in Figure 5 and Figure S4.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (29 Mar 2017) by Rui A. P. Perdigão

AR by Reinhard Prestele on behalf of the Authors (04 Apr 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (21 Apr 2017) by Rui A. P. Perdigão

AR by Reinhard Prestele on behalf of the Authors (26 Apr 2017)

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Short summary

Land-use change is still overly simplistically implemented in global ecosystem and climate models. We identify and discuss three major challenges at the interface of land-use and climate modeling and propose ways for how to improve land-use representation in climate models. We conclude that land-use data-provider and user communities need to engage in the joint development and evaluation of enhanced land-use datasets to improve the quantification of land use–climate interactions and feedback.