Combined impacts of future climate-driven vegetation changes and socioeconomic pressures on protected areas in Africa
© 2022 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.
| Veröffentlicht in: | Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. - 1999. - 36(2022), 6 vom: 10. Dez., Seite e13968 |
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| Weitere Verfasser: | , , |
| Format: | Online-Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | English |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2022
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| Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk: | Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology |
| Schlagworte: | Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Cambio global RCP SSP aDGVM global change grassland human population land use mehr... |
| Zusammenfassung: | © 2022 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. Africa's protected areas (PAs) are the last stronghold of the continent's unique biodiversity, but they appear increasingly threatened by climate change, substantial human population growth, and land-use change. Conservation planning is challenged by uncertainty about how strongly and where these drivers will interact over the next few decades. We investigated the combined future impacts of climate-driven vegetation changes inside African PAs and human population densities and land use in their surroundings for 2 scenarios until the end of the 21st century. We used the following 2 combinations of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCPs): the "middle-of-the-road" scenario SSP2-RCP4.5 and the resource-intensive "fossil-fueled development" scenario SSP5-RCP8.5. Climate change impacts on tree cover and biome type (i.e., desert, grassland, savanna, and forest) were simulated with the adaptive dynamic global vegetation model (aDGVM). Under both scenarios, most PAs were adversely affected by at least 1 of the drivers, but the co-occurrence of drivers was largely region and scenario specific. The aDGVM projections suggest considerable climate-driven tree cover increases in PAs in today's grasslands and savannas. For PAs in West Africa, the analyses revealed climate-driven vegetation changes combined with hotspots of high future population and land-use pressure. Except for many PAs in North Africa, future decreases in population and land-use pressures were rare. At the continental scale, SSP5-RCP8.5 led to higher climate-driven changes in tree cover and higher land-use pressure, whereas SSP2-RCP4.5 was characterized by higher future population pressure. Both SSP-RCP scenarios implied increasing challenges for conserving Africa's biodiversity in PAs. Our findings underline the importance of developing and implementing region-specific conservation responses. Strong mitigation of future climate change and equitable development scenarios would reduce ecosystem impacts and sustain the effectiveness of conservation in Africa |
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| Beschreibung: | Date Completed 01.12.2022 Date Revised 26.12.2022 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1523-1739 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/cobi.13968 |