Global Consequences of Land Use
Abstract
Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water, and shelter to more than six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet's resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Supplementary Material
File (foley_som.pdf)
- Download
- 10.54 MB
References and Notes
1
R. DeFries, G. Asner, R. Houghton, Eds., Ecosystems and Land Use Change. (American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Monograph Series, Vol. 153, Washington, DC, 2004).
2
R. S. DeFries, J. A. Foley, G. P. Asner, Front. Ecol. Environ.2, 249 (2004).
3
P. M. Vitousek, H. A. Mooney, J. Lubchenco, J. M. Melillo, Science277, 494 (1997).
4
P. A. Matson, W. J. Parton, A. G. Power, M. J. Swift, Science277, 504 (1997).
5
D. Tilman et al., Science292, 281 (2001).
6
M. Wackernagel et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.99, 9266 (2002).
7
R. A. Houghton, J. L. Hackler, ORNL/CDIAC-131, NDP-050/R1 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 2001).
8
R. A. Pielke Sr. et al., Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B360, 1705 (2002).
9
E. Kalnay, M. Cai, Nature423, 528 (2003).
10
S. L. Postel, G. C. Daily, P. R. Ehrlich, Science271, 785 (1996).
11
C. J. Vörösmarty, P. Green, J. Salisbury, R. B. Lammers, Science289, 284 (2000).
12
E. M. Bennett, S. R. Carpenter, N. F. Caraco, Bioscience51, 227 (2001).
13
S. L. Pimm, P. Raven, Nature403, 843 (2000).
14
P. M. Vitousek, P. R. Ehrlich, A. H. Ehrlich, P. A. Matson, Bioscience36, 368 (1986).
15
G. C. Daily, Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems (Island Press, Washington, DC, 1997).
16
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: A Framework for Assessment (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2003).
17
N. Ramankutty, J. A. Foley, Global Biogeochem. Cycles13, 997 (1999).
18
G. P. Asner et al., Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.29 (2004).
19
C. C. Mann, Science283, 310 (1999).
20
S. Wood, K. Sebastian, S. J. Scherr, Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Agroecosystems (International Food Policy Research Institute and World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, 2000).
21
M. W. Rosegrant, X. Cai, S. A. Cline, World Water and Food to 2025 (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, 2002).
22
P. H. Gleick, Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc.28, 275 (2003).
23
C. Kremen, N. M. Williams, R. W. Thorp, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.99, 16812 (2002).
24
T. H. Ricketts, G. C. Daily, P. R. Ehrlich, C. Michener, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., in press.
25
V. Sahin, M. J. Hall, J. Hydrol.178, 293 (1996).
26
M. H. Costa, A. Botta, J. A. Cardille, J. Hydrol.283, 206 (2003).
27
I. A. Shiklomanov, UN Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World (State Hydrol. Inst., St. Petersburg, Russia, 1998).
28
S. L. Postel, Pillar of Sand: Can the Miracle Last? (W.W. Norton, New York, 1999).
29
S. R. Carpenter et al., Ecol. Appl.8, 559 (1998).
30
A. R. Townsend et al., Front. Ecol. Environ.1, 240 (2003).
31
M. Williams, in The Earth as Transformed by Human Action, B. L. Turner et al., Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1990), pp. 179-201.
32
Food and Agriculture Organization, FAOSTAT Forestry Database (2004); http://faostat.fao.org.
33
H. K. Gibbs, thesis, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH (2001).
34
D. C. Nepstad et al., Nature398, 505 (1999).
35
Fang et al., Science292, 2320 (2001).
36
P. E. Kauppi et al., Science256, 70 (1992).
37
G. J. Nabuurs et al., Global Biogeochem. Cycles9, 152 (2003).
38
P. K. Snyder, C. Delire, J. A. Foley, Clim. Dyn.23, 279 (2004).
39
M. H. Costa, J. A. Foley, J. Clim.13, 18 (2000).
40
G. B. Bonan, D. Pollard, S. L. Thompson, Nature359, 716 (1992).
41
G. B. Bonan, Ecological Climatology (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2002).
42
Zhou et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.101, 9540 (2004).
43
S. Sillman, F. J. Samson, J. Geophys. Res.100, 11497 (1995).
44
J. A. Patz et al., Environ. Health Perspect.112, 1092 (2004).
45
A. Y. Vittor et al., J. Am. Trop. Med. Hyg., in press.
46
K. B. Chua et al., Lancet354, 1257 (1999).
47
J. B. Rose et al., Environ. Health Perspect.109, 211 (2001).
48
N. D. Wolfe et al., Lancet363, 932 (2004).
49
Editorial Staff, Environ. Health Perspect. 107, 139 (1999).
50
A. Cockburn, J. St Clair, K. Silverstein, Int. J. Health Serv.29, 459 (1999).
51
M. Scheffer et al., Nature413, 591 (2001).
52
R. Costanza et al., Bioscience50, 149 (2000).
53
B. L. Turner II et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.100, 8074 (2003).
54
C. R. Frink et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.96, 1175 (1999).
55
K. G. Cassman, A. Dobermann, D. T. Walters, Ambio31, 132 (2002).
56
D. Tilman, Nature396, 211 (1998).
57
N. J. Rosenberg, R. C. Izaurralde, Clim. Change51, 1 (2001).
58
R. Lal, Clim. Change51, 35 (2001).
59
President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystems (Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington, DC, 1998).
60
Z. Guo, X. Xiangming, L. Dianmo, Ecol. Appl.10, 925 (2000).
61
C. M. M. Mols, M. E. Visser, J. Appl. Ecol.39, 888 (2002).
62
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Heat Island Effect, http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ActionsLocalHeatIslandEffect.html (2003).
63
N. Wu et al., SE Asian J Trop Med Public Health22, 436 (1991).
64
We acknowledge the important contributions of both the American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference on Ecosystems and Land Use Change and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in spurring these ideas. We also wish to thank S. Donner, D. Foley, and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We are grateful to M. Sternitzky and N. Olejniczak for the maps and illustrations and to K. Flick and C. Webb for help with the references. The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.
(0)eLetters
eLetters is a forum for ongoing peer review. eLetters are not edited, proofread, or indexed, but they are screened. eLetters should provide substantive and scholarly commentary on the article. Embedded figures cannot be submitted, and we discourage the use of figures within eLetters in general. If a figure is essential, please include a link to the figure within the text of the eLetter. Please read our Terms of Service before submitting an eLetter.
Log In to Submit a ResponseNo eLetters have been published for this article yet.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Science
Volume 309 | Issue 5734
22 July 2005
22 July 2005
Copyright
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Published in print: 22 July 2005
Notes
Supporting Online Material
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5734/570/DC1
SOM Text
Figs. S1 to S3
Tables S1 and S2
References
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Usage
Altmetrics
Citations
Cite as
- Jonathan A. Foley et al.
Export citation
Select the format you want to export the citation of this publication.
Cited by
- Hybrid Global Annual 1-km IGBP Land Cover Maps for the Period 2000–2020, Journal of Remote Sensing, 4, (2024)./doi/10.34133/remotesensing.0122
- Local Full-Sector Land Uses Influenced by Multiregional Demand and Supply: The Case of Beijing, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 9, (2023)./doi/10.34133/ehs.0075
- Electromagnetic fields disrupt the pollination service by honeybees, Science Advances, 9, 19, (2023)./doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh1455
- Land-use emissions embodied in international trade, Science, 376, 6593, (597-603), (2022)./doi/10.1126/science.abj1572
- Projections of future forest degradation and CO2 emissions for the Brazilian Amazon, Science Advances, 8, 24, (2022)./doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj3309
- Land cover change and multiple remotely sensed datasets consistency in China, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 8, 1, (2022)./doi/10.1080/20964129.2022.2040385
- Pervasive shifts in forest dynamics in a changing world, Science, 368, 6494, (2021)./doi/10.1126/science.aaz9463
- Rewilding complex ecosystems, Science, 364, 6438, (2021)./doi/10.1126/science.aav5570
- Landscapes that work for biodiversity and people, Science, 362, 6412, (2021)./doi/10.1126/science.aau6020
- Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: The challenge to predict life in Earth system models, Science, 359, 6375, (2021)./doi/10.1126/science.aam8328
- See more
Loading...
View Options
Check Access
Log in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS Members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
- Become a AAAS Member
- Activate your AAAS ID
- Purchase Access to Other Journals in the Science Family
- Account Help
Log in via OpenAthens.
Log in via Shibboleth.
More options
Purchase digital access to this article
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.