A global biofuels program will potentially lead to intense pressures on land supply and cause widespread transformations in land use. These transformations can alter the Earth climate system by increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land use changes and by changing the reflective and energy exchange characteristics of land ecosystems. Using an integrated assessment model that links an economic model with climate, terrestrial biogeochemistry, and biogeophysics models, we examined the biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects of possible land use changes from an expanded global second\uffe2\uff80\uff90generation bioenergy program on surface temperatures over the first half of the 21st century. Our integrated assessment model shows that land clearing, especially forest clearing, has two concurrent effects\uffe2\uff80\uff94increased GHG emissions, resulting in surface air warming; and large changes in the land's reflective and energy exchange characteristics, resulting in surface air warming in the tropics but cooling in temperate and polar regions. Overall, these biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects will only have a small impact on global mean surface temperature. However, the model projects regional patterns of enhanced surface air warming in the Amazon Basin and the eastern part of the Congo Basin. Therefore, global land use strategies that protect tropical forests could dramatically reduce air warming projected in these regions.
", "keywords": ["Climate impacts", "Environmental Impact Assessment", "550", "13. Climate action", "Biofuels", "Land use", "11. Sustainability", "0207 environmental engineering", "02 engineering and technology", "15. Life on land", "7. Clean energy", "01 natural sciences", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50352"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Geophysical%20Research%20Letters", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1002/grl.50352", "name": "item", "description": "10.1002/grl.50352", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1002/grl.50352"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2013-04-28T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02689.x", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-04-13T16:19:35Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2012-03-08", "title": "Towards An Integrated Global Framework To Assess The Impacts Of Land Use And Management Change On Soil Carbon: Current Capability And Future Vision", "description": "AbstractIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 methodologies commonly underpin project\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale carbon accounting for changes in land use and management and are used in frameworks for Life Cycle Assessment and carbon footprinting of food and energy crops. These methodologies were intended for use at large spatial scales. This can introduce error in predictions at finer spatial scales. There is an urgent need for development and implementation of higher tier methodologies that can be applied at fine spatial scales (e.g. farm/project/plantation) for food and bioenergy crop greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting to facilitate decision making in the land\uffe2\uff80\uff90based sectors. Higher tier methods have been defined by IPCC and must be well evaluated and operate across a range of domains (e.g. climate region, soil type, crop type, topography), and must account for land use transitions and management changes being implemented. Furthermore, the data required to calibrate and drive the models used at higher tiers need to be available and applicable at fine spatial resolution, covering the meteorological, soil, cropping system and management domains, with quantified uncertainties. Testing the reliability of the models will require data either from sites with repeated measurements or from chronosequences. We review current global capability for estimating changes in soil carbon at fine spatial scales and present a vision for a framework capable of quantifying land use change and management impacts on soil carbon, which could be used for addressing issues such as bioenergy and biofuel sustainability, food security, forest protection, and direct/indirect impacts of land use change. The aim of this framework is to provide a globally accepted standard of carbon measurement and modelling appropriate for GHG accounting that could be applied at project to national scales (allowing outputs to be scaled up to a country level), to address the impacts of land use and land management change on soil carbon.
", "keywords": ["land use change", "Environmental Impact Assessment", "550", "ecosystem model", "Carbon Sequestration Science", "01 natural sciences", "7. Clean energy", "upland grassland", "soil", "stock change", "12. Responsible consumption", "11. Sustainability", "forest biomass", "Environmental assessment and monitoring", "soil carbon", "organic-matter", "agriculture", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences", "2. Zero hunger", "model", "Ecology", "land management", "assimilated carbon", "land use", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "15. Life on land", "long-term experiments", "southern brazil", "monitoring", "high temporal resolution", "13. Climate action", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "biodiversity conservation", "environment", "Environmental Sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02689.x"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02689.x", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02689.x", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02689.x"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2012-04-09T00:00:00Z"}}], "links": [{"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "This document as GeoJSON", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Environmental+Impact+Assessment&f=json", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "alternate", "type": "text/html", "title": "This document as HTML", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Environmental+Impact+Assessment&f=html", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection URL", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"type": "application/geo+json", "rel": "first", "title": "items (first)", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Environmental+Impact+Assessment&", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "last", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "items (last)", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Environmental+Impact+Assessment&offset=2", "hreflang": "en-US"}], "numberMatched": 2, "numberReturned": 2, "distributedFeatures": [], "timeStamp": "2026-04-16T08:38:21.130013Z"}