PRESS RELEASE
Human Land Use Places Strain on Ecosystems
In-depth studies of how human land use is having an ever greater impact on
ecosystems over a period of three centuries are being carried out for the first time.
This project, funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, investigates on a global level
how the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society has affected ecosystems.
Knowledge about past processes will be used to model and assess possible
consequences of growing biomass demand and land use for global sustainability.
The enormous demand for land for human use is leaving our planet's ecosystems with less
and less room to survive. Through their land use, humans today are already consuming over
20 percent of the Earth's natural biomass production, thereby robbing ecosystems of their
most important energy source.
The intensity of land use is heavily dependent on population density, as researchers from the
Institute of Social Ecology at the University of Klagenfurt have already identified in a previous
project. Yet other factors complicate the picture, as shown by the example of industrialised
countries. While a richer diet with a high share of meat in these countries is driving the
extension of land use, technological progress is a counteracting force and reduces the spatial
imprint. The researchers are now looking to resolve this conundrum in a follow-up project.
Studying temporal dynamics will help them to determine both the socio-economic and natural
factors that lead to human dominance over ecosystems and to identify potential
consequences of this dominance.
Human Land Dominance
The intensity of human land use and its impact on the biosphere can be determined using the
HANPP indicator. This measures human appropriation of net primary production. Net primary
production is the biomass that primary producers, mainly plants, produce after deduction of
their own cell respiration and which is therefore available as energy input for ecosystems
each year. As project leader Prof. Haberl explains: "In order to determine the factors for
human land dominance, we create a global HANPP timeline that extends from the 18th to the
20th centuries. This database will not only allow us to analyse how the transition from an
agrarian to an industrial society has impacted on ecosystems – i.e. what proportion of the net
primary production of natural ecosystems has been lost through human activity. We will also
be able to examine which changes in natural and socio-economic systems have resulted in
changes to HANPP. At a socio-economic level, for example, the key parameters include
rising prosperity and agricultural technology. But natural limitations such as soil properties or
the climate are also included in the analysis."
Restricted Service
Beyond creating an understanding of major factors that cause changes in HANPP, an
assessment of the possible consequences for global sustainability is a major goal of the
project. For the first time, this project establishes a link between the production of
biomaterials and the services provided by nature, as project team member Dr. Karlheinz Erb
explains: "We support the hypothesis that intensive human land use changes ecosystems'
productivity and their resilience and that it restricts their ability to provide other ecosystem
services. It is therefore debatable whether, under changing conditions, ecosystems are still
able to absorb waste and emissions to the extent they have in the past." The researchers
also address changes in the availability of biomass, in global water, carbon and nitrogen
flows, and in the volume of carbon that plants store worldwide as long-term consequences
and are testing the hypothesis that HANPP is a relevant factor for loss in biodiversity.
This FWF project shows how important it is to consider humans' land dominance, an area
that has until now been little researched, in the context of sustainable development
strategies. The researchers are urging in particular that the already high pressure on
ecosystems reflected in the current HANPP value should not be intensified by over-ambitious
plans for replacing fossil energy with biomass energy.
Scientific Contact:
Prof. Helmut Haberl
University of Klagenfurt
Institute of Social Ecology
Schottenfeldgasse 29
1070 Wien
Austria
T +43 / 1 / 522 40 00 - 406
E helmut.haberl@uni-klu.ac.at
Austrian Science Fund FWF:
Mag. Stefan Bernhardt
Haus der Forschung
Sensengasse 1
1090 Wien
Austria
T +43 / 1 / 505 67 40 - 8111
E stefan.bernhardt@fwf.ac.at
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