Submit to Land Review for Land Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 April 2022) | Viewed by 23836

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Bruce A. McCarl

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Interests: climate change; climate change mitigation; water economics; policy; mathematical programming
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Chengcheng Fei

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Interests: climate change economics; resource economics; mathematical programming
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Jianhong Mu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Texas A&M Transportation Research Institute, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Interests: climate change economics; land use economics; risk management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Land use and climate change are complexly intertwined. Land provides food, fiber, timber, energy, ecosystem services, and biodiversity. Land productivity and processes are highly influenced by the climate, which is undergoing change due to factors including greenhouse gas fluxes. On the other hand, land is also involved with greenhouse gas fluxes, sequestering carbon, emitting gasses, and producing products that can replace commodities which are intensive in greenhouse gas emission. Thus, land is both influential in the drivers of climate change and is affected by the changing climate—a complex interrelationship. Land management can influence the interrelationship in two ways: it can reduce greenhouse gas net emissions, mitigating climate change; it also alters the practices or susceptibility of production systems to adapt to climate change, limiting the effects of climate change.

Research is needed in the domain of land use, land productivity, land-based greenhouse gas flux, climate change, and land management, because both future land use/productivity and the extent of climate change depend on land management and climate change interactions. While many aspects of the above issues are researchable topics and millions of pages have likely been written in this domain, we would like to narrow the topics into economics-related discussion, as the Guest Editors are economists.

This Special Issue will focus on economic issues arising in the interaction of agricultural land use and climate change, including the following topics:

Vulnerability of agricultural land use systems and economic productivity to altered climate, including the effects of extreme events;
Economic consequences of adaptation to climate risk through land management and land use change;
Land-related actions that can economically reduce net greenhouse gas fluxes;
Sustainable agricultural land management to improve land productivity, economics, and risk exposure in addressing the total climate change issue.

Prof. Dr. Bruce A. McCarl
Dr. Chengcheng Fei
Dr. Jianhong Mu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

climate change
land management
land productivity
adaption
mitigation
economics and risk management

Published Papers (6 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

18 pages, 602 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Can Cooperative Supports and Adoption of Improved Technologies Help Increase Agricultural Income? Evidence from a Recent Study

by Nawab Khan, Ram L. Ray, Hazem S. Kassem, Muhammad Ihtisham, Badar Naseem Siddiqui and Shemei Zhang

Land 2022, 11(3), 361; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11030361 - 01 Mar 2022

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3114

Abstract

Global climate change may result in major environmental issues that have already affected and will continue to affect agricultural sector in the future. A continuing effort to utilize and adopt new agricultural technologies is necessary to mitigate climate change and increase agricultural income. Agricultural cooperatives are gradually being used in emerging countries to encourage improved technology and reduce food insecurity and poverty. This research analyses the influence of cooperative supports (CS) and technology adoption (TA) on agricultural income in Pakistan. It applied the propensity score matching (PSM) technique to evaluate the productivity on survey data from 498 wheat growers to conduct counterfactual analysis for farmers in Pakistan. In addition, a dual selection model (DSM) was applied to resolve the bias in sample selection caused by observed and unobserved aspects of survey data. The results showed that, contrasted with non-membership and non-adopters, growers who joined CS and TA could boost agricultural income by 2.78% and 2.35%, respectively. Stimulatingly, the influence of less-revenue farmers on agricultural income was more substantial than that of high-income farmers. Agricultural income of growers who attached cooperatives and adopted improved agricultural technology enhanced by 5.45% and 4.51%, respectively. These results, among others, emphasize the optimistic role of growing CS and TA in boosting wheat farmer’s income. The findings of the study showed strong relationships among education, age, skill, training, gender with CS and TA, and agricultural income. Overall, this study can be helpful in conducting similar studies in other emerging/developing countries for wheat or any other crop growers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 4071 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impacts of Climate Change on Livestock Location in the US: A Statistical Analysis

by Minglu Wang and Bruce A. McCarl

Land 2021, 10(11), 1260; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10111260 - 18 Nov 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1897

Abstract

Livestock production is a valuable part of US agriculture as it contributes 50% of total agricultural value. Climate change is likely a threat to livestock production, but research regarding the impact of climate change on livestock sectors is limited. This paper examines how climate change affects livestock mix and location. Specifically, we examine climate effects on grazing animals and, in particular, on beef cattle, dairy cattle, goats, and sheep. We examine this in the US based on county-level data by using fractional multinomial logit econometrics. Our results show that climate is an influential determinant of where livestock herds are located and species mix. The impacts of climate vary by species and region. We also find significant influences from geographic characteristics and animal product prices. Subsequently, we project how climate change would influence future livestock mix and location. It reveals a likely growth in beef cow land shares across most of the US with the largest gains in the northwest. We also find substitutions between species as climate change progresses with dairy cows exhibiting the largest reduction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 4840 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Making Agriculture Carbon Neutral Amid a Changing Climate: The Case of South-Western Australia

by Ross Kingwell

Land 2021, 10(11), 1259; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10111259 - 17 Nov 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3056

Abstract

Making Australian agriculture carbon neutral by 2050 is a goal espoused by several agricultural organisations in Australia. How costly might it be to attain that goal, especially when adverse climate change projections apply to agriculture in southern Australia? This study uses scenario analysis to examine agricultural emissions and their abatement via reforestation in south-western Australia under projected climate change. Most scenarios include the likelihood of agricultural emissions being reduced in the coming decades. However, the impact of projected adverse climate change on tree growth and tree survival means that the cost of achieving agricultural carbon neutrality via reforestation is forecast to increase in south-western Australia. Agricultural R&D and innovation that enable agricultural emissions to diminish in the coming decades will be crucial to lessen the cost of achieving carbon neutrality. On balance, the more likely scenarios reveal the real cost of achieving carbon neutrality will not greatly increase. The cost of achieving carbon neutrality under the various scenarios is raised by an additional AUD22 million to AUD100 million per annum in constant 2020 dollar terms. This magnitude of cost increase is very small relative to the region’s gross value of agricultural production that is regularly greater than AUD10 billion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

18 pages, 1807 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Perennial Crop Dynamics May Affect Long-Run Groundwater Levels

by Bradley Franklin, Kurt Schwabe and Lucia Levers

Land 2021, 10(9), 971; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10090971 - 15 Sep 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2020

Abstract

During California’s severe drought from 2011 to 2017, a significant shift in irrigated area from annual to perennial crops occurred. Due to the time requirements associated with bringing perennial crops to maturity, more perennial acreage likely increases the opportunity costs of fallowing, a common drought mitigation strategy. Increases in the costs of fallowing may put additional pressure on another common “go-to” drought mitigation strategy—groundwater pumping. Yet, overdrafted groundwater systems worldwide are increasingly becoming the norm. In response to depleting aquifers, as evidenced in California, sustainable groundwater management policies are being implemented. There has been little modeling of the potential effect of increased perennial crop production on groundwater use and the implications for public policy. A dynamic, integrated deterministic model of agricultural production in Kern County, CA, is developed here with both groundwater and perennial area by vintage treated as stock variables. Model scenarios investigate the impacts of surface water reductions and perennial prices on land and groundwater use. The results generally indicate that perennial production may lead to slower aquifer draw-down compared with deterministic models lacking perennial crop dynamics, highlighting the importance of accounting for the dynamic nature of perennial crops in understanding the co-evolution of agricultural and groundwater systems under climate change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 5115 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Major United States Land Use as Influenced by an Altering Climate: A Spatial Econometric Approach

by Sung Ju Cho and Bruce McCarl

Land 2021, 10(5), 546; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050546 - 20 May 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3149

Abstract

Climate and socioeconomic and policy factors are found to stimulate land use changes along with changes in greenhouse gas emissions and adaption behaviors. Most of the studies investigating land use changes in the U.S. have not considered potential spatial effects explicitly. We used a two-step linearized multinomial logit to examine the impacts of various factors on conterminous U.S. land use changes including spatial lag coefficients. The estimation results show that the spatial dependences have existed for cropland, pastureland, and grasslands with a negative dependence on forests but weakened in most of the land uses except for croplands. Temperature and precipitation were found to have nonlinear impacts on the land use shares in the succeeding years by exerting opposite effects on crop versus pasture/grass shares. We also predicted land use changes under different climate change scenarios. The simulation results imply that the southern regions of the U.S. would lose cropland shares with further severity under the business-as-usual climate scenarios, while the land use shares for pasture/grass and forest would increase in those regions. As land use plays an important role in the climate system and vice versa, the results from this study may help policymakers tackle climate-driven land use changes and farmers adapt to climate change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

21 pages, 1112 KiB

Open AccessReview

Managing Land Carrying Capacity: Key to Achieving Sustainable Production Systems for Food Security

by Xiukang Wang

Land 2022, 11(4), 484; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11040484 - 27 Mar 2022

Cited by 70 | Viewed by 9046

Abstract

Many previous studies have estimated the carrying capacity and feasible planetary boundaries for humankind. However, less attention has been given to how we will sustainably feed 9 billion people in 2050 and beyond. Here, we review the major natural resources that limit food production and discuss possible options, measures, and strategies to sustainably feed a human population of 9 billion in 2050 and beyond. Currently, food production greatly depends on external inputs, e.g., irrigation water and fertilizers, but these approaches are not sustainable. Due to the unbalanced distribution of global natural resources and large regional differences, urbanization expansion causes important areas to face more serious arable land resource shortages. Hence, sustainably feeding 9 billion people in 2050 and beyond remains an immense challenge for humankind, and this challenge requires novel planning and better decision-making tools. Importantly, the measures and strategies employed must be region-/country-specific because of the significant differences in the socioeconomic characteristics and natural environmental carrying capacity in different parts of the world. Considering the impact of unexpected extreme events (e.g., a global pandemic and war) in the future, the food trade and translocation of goods will also face challenges, and the strategies and decision-making processes employed must consider the possible influences at both regional and global scales. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Land Use, Economics and Climate Change)

► Show Figures