Analyzing the global human appropriation of net primary production — processes, trajectories, implications. An introduction

Humanity's role in shaping patterns and processes in the terrestrial biosphere is large and growing. Most of the earth's fertile land is used more or less intensively by humans for resource extraction, production, transport, consumption and waste deposition or as living space. Biomass production on cropland, grazing areas and in managed forests dominates area requirements, but other processes such as soil degradation, human-induced fires and expansion of settlements and infrastructure play an increasingly important role as well. The growing human domination of terrestrial ecosystems contributes to biodiversity loss as well as to a reduced capability of ecosystems to deliver vital services such as buffering capacity, soil conservation or self-regulation. This special section is devoted to the presentation of recent research into the patterns, determinants and implications of the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), an integrated socio-ecological indicator of land use intensity. By measuring the combined effect of land conversion and biomass harvest on the availability of trophic energy (biomass) in ecosystems, HANPP explicitly links natural with socioeconomic processes and allows for integrated analyses of land systems. This introductory article explains the rationale that links current HANPP research to Ecological Economics and discusses issues of definition and methods shared by all articles included in the special section. Finally, it gives an overview of the individual papers, provides some general conclusions and presents an outlook for future research: a better understanding of long-term trajectories of HANPP, of the significance of trade patterns as well as of the future role of bioenergy are highlighted as important issues to be addressed in the coming years.     

Biodiversity pressure and the driving forces behind

Since the UNCED Conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992, the need to actively protect biodiversity is universally acknowledged. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defined biodiversity as comprising ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity, and decided for the ecosystem level as the basis for describing biodiversity. However, due to conceptual problems as much as to the lack of data, so far no comprehensive measurements of biodiversity have been developed. A single measure quantitatively describing biodiversity even seems out of reach due to the incommensurability of the three levels. This makes it impossible to directly base policy decisions on existing or future estimates of the “total size” of biodiversity. Instead, it is suggested to analyse the pressures threatening biodiversity, which can usually be measured quantitatively, and act as the interface between the socioeconomic driving forces behind them and the biological impacts. The drivers (physical primary drivers, politics and policies causing them as secondary and institutional structures as tertiary ones) do not only affect biodiversity, but a range of sustainability problems. The analysis permits to integrate biodiversity risks with broader environmental and sustainability policies, and thus to mainstream biodiversity preservation.Such an analysis is presented for Europe, naming pressures and driving forces and illustrating the close links between the causes of biodiversity pressures and other environmental problems. This way, it is possible to develop first ideas how the standard set of environmental policies must be modified and extended to cover the issue of biodiversity.     

Embodied HANPP: Mapping the spatial disconnect between global biomass production and consumption

Biomass trade results in a growing spatial disconnect between environmental impacts due to biomass production and the places where biomass is being consumed. The pressure on ecosystems resulting from the production of traded biomass, however, is highly variable between regions and products. We use the concept of embodied human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) to map the spatial disconnect between net-producing and net-consuming regions. Embodied HANPP comprises total biomass withdrawals and land use induced changes in productivity resulting from the provision of biomass products. International net transfers of embodied HANPP are of global significance, amounting to 1.7 PgC/year. Sparsely populated regions are mainly net producers, densely populated regions net consumers, independent of development status. Biomass consumption and trade are expected to surge over the next decades, suggesting a need to sustainably manage supply and demand of products of ecosystems on a global level.     

Land use change, biomass production and HANPP: The case of Hungary 1961-2005

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the human appropriation of aboveground net primary production (aHANPP) in Hungary in the years 1961-2005. In this period aboveground HANPP dropped from 67% to 49% of the potential vegetation's NPP. The trajectory was not smooth, but aboveground HANPP fluctuated with changes in factors affecting agricultural production conditions. Both aboveground net primary production (aNPP) of the prevailing vegetation and harvested aNPP increased during the socialist regime, dropped when the system collapsed and has shown considerable fluctuations since. We discuss the development of aboveground HANPP and the Hungarian land use system in the context of socioeconomic changes during three distinct phases: (1) industrialisation of agriculture (1961-1989), (2) regime collapse (1989-1993) and (3) restructuring of a new economy (1993-2005). Within these periods, different driving factors influenced aboveground HANPP and its constituents. In the phase of industrialisation, mechanisation and agrochemical inputs reduced aHANPP while harvested amounts of biomass increased progressively. In the second phase, political and economic circumstances devastated production conditions resulting in a decline of productivity of actual vegetation and a temporary rise in aboveground HANPP. During the last twelve years, industrialisation patterns of agricultural production recovered. The restructuring of inefficient agricultural production systems raised harvest at moderate levels of agricultural inputs, while climatic conditions intimidated high yield and harvest security. The paper discusses the effect of different economic and political regimes and of major socioeconomic restructuring on the development of the land use system, biomass production and aboveground HANPP.     

Multi-level driving forces of biological invasions

Biological invasions are human-induced processes affecting biodiversity. Information on biological invasions can be organized following the categories of the DPSIR model. This paper examines the state of the art in the application of this model to the study and management of biological invasions.The paper focuses on driving forces and pressures, clarifying the different levels at which drivers operate and promote invasion processes. Identifying driving forces is necessary not only to understand the processes behind biological invasions but also to generate policy initiatives that address threats to biodiversity at different levels of governance. Thus driving forces and pressures on biological invasions are identified taking into account the multi-level character of such processes. The final section reviews the role that different stakeholders play in biological invasion management and finally elaborates a list of indicators derived from the analysis that can be used in decision making concerning invasion processes.     

Factor Endowments,Democracy, and Trade Policy Divergence

We develop a stochastic model of electoral competition in order to study the economic and political determinants of trade policy. We model a small open economy with two tradable goods, each of which is produced using a sector‐specific factor (e.g., land and capital) and another factor that is mobile between these tradable sectors (labor); one nontradable good, which is also produced using a specific factor (skilled labor), and an elected government with the mandate to tax trade flows. The tax revenue is used to provide local public goods that increase the economic agents’ utility. We use this general equilibrium model to explicitly derive the ideal policies of the different socioeconomic groups in society (landlords, industrialists, labor, and skilled workers). We then use those ideal policies to model the individual probabilistic voting behavior of the members of each of these socioeconomic groups. We use this model to shed light on how differences in the comparative advantages of countries explain trade policy divergence between countries as well as trade policy instability within countries. We regard trade policy instability to mean that, in equilibrium, political parties diverge in terms of the political platforms they adopt. We show that in natural resource (land)–abundant economies with very little capital, or in economies that specializes in the production of manufactures, parties tend to converge to the same policy platform, and trade policy is likely to be stable and relatively close to free trade. In contrast, in a natural resource–abundant economy with an important domestic industry that competes with the imports, parties tend to diverge, and trade policy is likely to be more protectionist and unstable.     

To settle or protect? A global analysis of net primary production in parks and urban areas

We test—at the global scale—the hypothesis that human beings tend to build settlements in areas of high biological productivity, and protect (as parks) areas of low productivity. Furthermore, we propose an alternative measure of the extent and effectiveness of the global protected areas network based on potential net primary production (NPP₀). The average NPP₀ in urban areas and parks is calculated and compared to the average NPP₀ of the geopolitical regions and biomes containing these areas. Additionally, human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) in parks is used as an indicator of the effectiveness of these protected areas. We find that in almost all regions of the world, humans have chosen to settle in the most productive areas. At the global scale, urban areas have considerably higher NPP₀ (592 g Cm^− 2 yr^− 1) than the global average (494 g Cm^− 2 yr^− 1), while parks have roughly average NPP₀ (490 g Cm^− 2 yr^− 1). Parks with an IUCN category of I-VI account for 9.5% of the planet's terrestrial NPP₀, compared to 9.6% of its terrestrial area. Although protected area and protected NPP₀ are nearly equal, this equivalence is diminished by HANPP within parks. Globally, the average HANPP in all protected areas is 14% of their NPP₀, and HANPP within parks increases as the park management category becomes less restrictive. Moreover, we find a positive correlation between HANPP in parks and the extent of urbanization in the surrounding region and biome. Area-based targets for conservation provide no information on either the quality of the areas we choose to protect, or the effectiveness of that protection. We conclude that NPP₀ and HANPP may provide an additional, useful tool for assessing the extent and effectiveness of the global protected areas network.     

The global loss of net primary production resulting from human-induced soil degradation in drylands

Land degradation, the temporary or permanent reduction of land's productive capacity resulting from poor land management, has gained considerable attention as an environmental and development issue of global importance, in particular in the Earth's drylands. This study presents a global estimate of net primary production (NPP) losses caused by human-induced dryland degradation. Due to the large uncertainties related to international databases on dryland degradation, we compiled a world map of the extent and degree of desertification based on existing regional and global maps. Two distinct approaches were followed in order to estimate NPP losses due to degradation on drylands: in the first approach, we combined these maps with model results on global potential NPP, determined with the LPJ-DGVM, with a set of factors on NPP losses per degradation degree, derived from the literature. In a second approach, we made use of spatially explicit information on potential and current NPP of agricultural areas obtained from a global HANPP assessment [Haberl, H., Erb, K.-H., Krausmann, F., Gaube, V., Bondeau, A., Plutzar, C., Gingrich, S., Lucht, W. and Fischer-Kowalski, M., 2007. Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104: 12942-12947.]. We used the difference between potential and current NPP on croplands situated in drylands in order to quantify the effect of dryland degradation on NPP. NPP losses were found to range between 799 and 1936 Tg C/yr in the first approach, and to amount to 965 Tg C/yr in the second approach. Overall, approximately 2% of the global terrestrial NPP are lost each year due to dryland degradation, or between 4% and 10% of the potential NPP in drylands. NPP losses amount to 20-40% of the potential NPP on degraded agricultural areas in the global average and above 55% in some world regions. The results reveal that the contributions of dryland degradation to the total HANPP in drylands is of similar dimension than the overall annual socioeconomic biomass harvest. Accordingly, strategies aimed at reducing dryland degradation could present promising options to sustain future population numbers without putting further pressures on dryland ecosystems.     

Human appropriation of net primary production in the United Kingdom, 1800-2000 : Changes in society's impact on ecological energy flows during the agrarian-industrial transition

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the United Kingdom's society's long-term intervention into the energy flows of domestic terrestrial ecosystems through the human appropriation of aboveground net primary production (aHANPP) covering the period 1800-2000. The depicted aHANPP trajectory and the historical development of its components are discussed in view of a continuously increasing population and the transition process from an agrarian to an industrial socioecological regime. During the 19th century, aHANPP shows a steady decline from its level of 71% in 1800. While even higher levels were reached during the mid 20th century, the trend during the last forty years of the period under investigation again shows a reduction of aHANPP, which lies at 68% in the year 2000. The high values of aHANPP in the United Kingdom are primarily attributable to the limited amount of forest in comparison to large agricultural areas. At the beginning of the studied period, the relative stabilisation or even decrease in aHANPP in comparison to population development was made possible through the area expansion of and productivity increases on cropland and permanent pastures. Later this was made possible through the outsourcing of biomass harvest, by satisfying local nutritional demands by means of overseas imports, and as from the mid 20th century through huge amounts of fossil fuel based inputs into agriculture (e.g. increased amounts of fertilizers and motorized traction) which allowed increases in biomass harvest to be decoupled from HANPP.     

Biological conservation in dynamic agricultural landscapes: Effectiveness of public policies and trade-offs with agricultural production

Land use change and land management intensification are major drivers of biodiversity loss, especially in agricultural landscapes, that cover a large and increasing share of the world's surface. Incentive-based agri-environmental policies are designed to influence farmers' land-use decisions in order to mitigate environmental degradation. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes for biological conservation in a dynamic agricultural landscape under economic uncertainty. We develop a dynamic ecological economic model of agricultural land-use and spatially explicit population dynamics. We then relate policies (subsidies to grassland, taxation of agricultural intensity) to the ecological outcome (probability of persistence of a species of interest). We also analyze the associated trade-offs between agricultural production (in value) and biological conservation (in probability of persistence) at the landscape scale.     

Towards an improved understanding of farmers' behaviour: The integrative agent-centred (IAC) framework

An effective approach to research on farmers' behaviour is based on: i) an explicit and well-motivated behavioural theory; ii) an integrative approach; and iii) understanding feedback processes and dynamics. While current approaches may effectively tackle some of them, they often fail to combine them together.The paper presents the integrative agent-centred (IAC) framework, which aims at filling this gap. It functions in accordance with these three pillars and provides a conceptual structure to understand farmers' behaviour in agricultural systems.The IAC framework is agent-centred and supports the understanding of farmers' behavior consistently with the perspective of agricultural systems as complex social–ecological systems. It combines different behavioural drivers, bridges between micro and macro levels, and depicts a potentially varied model of human agency.The use of the framework in practice is illustrated through two studies on pesticide use among smallholders in Colombia.The examples show how the framework can be implemented to derive policy implications to foster a transition towards more sustainable agricultural practices.The paper finally suggests that the framework can support different research designs for the study of agents' behaviour in agricultural and social–ecological systems.     

Defining and exploring the terrorism field: Toward an intertheoretic, agent-based approach

Drawing upon organizational design, contingency, and field theory, we outline a conceptual model for studying terrorism at the field level and argue that existing computational organizational theory could be extended to enable such inquiry. We introduce the terrorism field as the system of dynamic interaction between the terrorism, counterterrorism and political governance industries, defining the overarching functions of each. We then argue that intertheoretic, field-level inquiry could lead to explicit conceptual and computational models with significant benefits for researchers and policy makers, to include enhancing understanding of the proximate environmental conditions that are deleterious to the use of terrorism by political challengers. Using POW-ER, an illustrative field-level case of a basic terrorist attack is then modeled based on two archetypes of terrorist organizational forms emerging from the new terrorism debate: 1) hierarchy and 2) network, and two treatments: 1) applying counterterrorism techniques and 2) reducing knowledge within the terrorist organization. Preliminary findings compared to the baseline case are discussed, as well as implications for future research.     

A hierarchical model of the determinants of non-performing assets in banks: an ISM and MICMAC approach

The banking systems of emerging economies in general and India in particular are facing sustained impairment due to mounting non-performing assets (NPAs). In the absence of stringent policies and their implementation, the results will be detrimental and may eventually lead to an economic crisis. Thus, it is imperative to unearth the causal factors and mitigate the risks involved with rising NPAs. The study attempts to identify the determinants of NPAs from the existing literature and subsequently, explore the interlinkages between the identified factors. A model of these factors is developed using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and MICMAC approach. Key managerial insights were obtained by the suggested model, specific to the Indian context. The hierarchical model provides a clearer perspective about the relationship between the factors and suggests that economic conditions and political factors are the key drivers which impact the ownership pattern and adherence to the regulatory framework; these further impact the internal factors related to the banks and borrowers’ capacity to repay. The study will act as a scaffolding for policymakers and bankers. Based on these findings, better instruments and mechanisms for recovery/management of NPAs can be put in place.     

Trajectories in human domination of ecosystems: Human appropriation of net primary production in the Philippines during the 20th century

The “human appropriation of net primary production” (HANPP) has been suggested as a comprehensive indicator to measure impacts of human land use on ecosystems. It accounts for (a) human-induced changes in biological productivity and (b) biomass harvest. This study presents an analysis of aboveground HANPP in the Philippines between 1910 and 2003, a period characterized by massive deforestation and increases in land use intensity and biomass extraction. Results show a steep increase of aboveground HANPP from just below 35% of potential productivity in 1910 to slightly above 60% in 1970 and constant values since then. Large-scale changes in land cover and agricultural practices were the main direct determinants of this trajectory in HANPP. Remarkably, HANPP grew at much slower pace than population did: While the amount of NPP appropriated by humans doubled throughout the period, population increased by a factor ten. Increasing efficiency in terms of biomass extraction per unit of area, relying on ever-increasing inputs, and changes in the nation's physical biomass trade balance were of major importance for this difference in growth rates. In the coming decades, the Philippines will have to face the challenge to meet increases in biomass demand without putting even higher strains on the ecosystems.     

Agricultural innovation in less developed countries

We identify and elaborate some critical factors and mechanisms that foster the emergence of cooperative behavioral patterns. Through institutionalization, which solves social dilemmas through habituation, these factors and mechanisms provide the foundation of contingent cooperation and contextual trust in specific interaction ‘arenas’ and ‘meso’-sized ‘platforms’ (and related carrier groups) in these. This, then, may in turn support the emergence of general trust in the whole population, i.e., across all specific arenas and platforms. The emergence of institutions of cooperation may gain traction more easily in smaller arenas. This, and the transfer, spillover, or generalization to other arenas and platforms, is by no means determined, and the analytical foundation we offer permits to account for the different levels of cooperation, general trust, and socioeconomic performance observable in real-world economies (varieties of capitalisms). Directions of future research, as well as a policy focus, are provided as well.     

Bringing Ecosystem Services into the Real World: An Operational Framework for Assessing the Economic Consequences of Losing Wild Nature

Policy action to halt the global loss of biodiversity and ecosystems is hindered by the perception that it would be so costly as to compromise economic development, yet this assumption needs testing. Inspired by the recent Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, the leaders of the G8+5 nations commissioned a similar assessment of the economics of losing biodiversity, under the Potsdam Initiative on Biodiversity. Here, we propose a conceptual framework for such a global assessment which emphasizes several critical insights from the environmental economics and valuation literature: contrasting counterfactual scenarios which differ solely in whether they include specific conservation policies; identifying non-overlapping benefits; modeling the production, flow, use and value of benefits in a spatially-explicit way; and incorporating the likely costs as well as possible benefits of policy interventions. Tackling these challenges, we argue, will significantly enhance our ability to quantify how the loss of benefits derived from ecosystems and biodiversity compares with the costs incurred in retaining them. We also summarise a review of the current state of knowledge, in order to assess how quickly this framework could be operationalized for some key ecosystem services.     

What drives technology transitions? An integration of different approaches within transition studies

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.     

Human appropriation of aboveground net primary production in Spain, 1955-2003: An empirical analysis of the industrialization of land use

The human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) is an indicator of the human domination of ecosystems that measures to which extent human activities alter the amount of biomass available each year in ecosystems. This paper analyses the development of aboveground HANPP (aHANPP) in Spain for the period from 1955 to 2003. During this period, Spain's agriculture underwent a transition from a largely pre-industrial to a highly intensified production system. Changes in land use patterns include a reduction of cropland area and an expansion of forest area. Results show that aHANPP declined from 67% of potential aNPP in 1955 to 61% in 2003. Biomass harvest strongly increased from 68 million tons dry matter biomass per year (Mt/yr) to 106 Mt/yr, with nearly all of this increase occurring on cropland. Productivity losses due to human-induced land conversions dropped significantly from 112 Mt/yr to 63 Mt/yr, mainly as a result of the surge in cropland productivity and the increase in forest area. Despite its decrease during the last decades, aHANPP in Spain is still at a remarkably high level in comparison with the global average or other industrialized countries.     

Non-monetary poverty in Togo: a multidimensional approach

The monetary approach is not sufficient to understand the multiple dimension of poverty. The purpose of this research is therefore to measure and analyze multidimensional poverty reduced to a single non-monetary dimension and according to the characteristics of household heads. Based on the non-monetary variables provided by the most recent country survey (QUIBB 2006), we use Multidimensional Correspondence Analysis techniques to construct a Composite Poverty Indicator. The results of the non-poverty index suggest that the poorest are large families and households in rural areas. The deprivation is also more serious in households whose heads are male, aged between 51 and 99 and less educated. The findings are the same for the monetary approach at the poverty line, leading to the conclusion that both types of poverty are quite strongly and positively correlated. Finally, we propose some recommendations for socioeconomic policies.     

Participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance

This paper introduces a special section devoted to participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance. The departing point for this research was the recognition that although there is a relative agreement regarding the need to develop new multi-dimensional, inclusive and plural approaches to water resource management, there is still a deficiency of related methodologies and tools. This acknowledgement has motivated the undertaking of the ADVISOR — Integrated Evaluation for Sustainable River Basin Governance research project, which aimed at improving the understanding of evaluation processes, as part of river basin planning and management, and to test the use of specific tools to support the conduct of participatory processes. The paper starts with a discussion of the concept of integrated water resources management and an illustration of the water policies that have been adopted in different countries as a response to these trends. The conceptual framework that was developed in ADVISOR is then presented, as well as the main results from the ex-post analysis of the decision processes regarding five water related projects in different European countries. This analysis concluded that, in most situations, the decision-making processes fell short of including the interests, perceptions and values of affected parties. The remaining of the paper introduces the articles that form this special section, mostly devoted to the testing of new platforms for participation and deliberation. In the final section, a discussion on the assumptions and limitations of deliberative processes is presented, based on the results from the application of the different methods. Further research needs on the integration of different deliberative tools and on the integration of deliberation with decision processes are identified.