Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is a central topic in global change research. It is a high priority to improve the fundamental understanding of LULCC interactions with human, biogeochemical, and biogeophysical dynamics, and of LULCC impacts on the regional and planetary climate system, as well as on the functioning of our socioeconomic system. This special issue aims to synthesize existing research, new findings, and to provide a roadmap for future research.
The following are examples of questions that can be addressed in submitted papers:
- What are the relationships between land-use activities and land-cover changes, past, present, and expected for the future?
- How do rates of land-use change depend on land cover and climate?
- What has been the rate, magnitude, and type of LULCC over the past thousand years?
- How well do climate models simulate the impact of LULCC on trace gas and energy exchanges between the biosphere and atmosphere?
- How well do land-surface models capture the different sensitivities of land-use system to climate forcing?
- Is there evidence of LULCC being an important forcing agent of the climate in the past?
- Which types of LULCC feedbacks within the climate and socioeconomic system are important?
- What are the plausible options to manage the future LULCC to mitigate and adapt to climate variability (including extremes) and longer-term change?
- What is the role of LUCLCC in air quality and atmospheric chemistry, e.g., through affecting boundary layer exchanges of reactive compounds and aerosols?
- How can we better represent the land system including LULCC in Earth system models?
- How can we improve models of the global land system by representing human behavioural and decisional processes
