The Cost of Action and of Inaction Against Land Degradation

Book Launch seminar, IFPRI December 3, 2015

The cost of action of &

inaction against land degradation

What is land degradation?

According to Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), land degradation is a long-term Loss of ecosystem services• Definition significantly differs

from past focus on loss of provisioning Services

• Reflects the United Nations sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

• Complicates rigorous analysis

What does this study contribute to literature and current debate on Sustainable Development?

• New data on global land degradation• NDVI – correct GLADA data for carbon fertilization (CF) &

rainfall variability (RV) to isolate anthropogenic LD• Conducted groundtruthing of satellite data in six countries -

strong agreement between community & satellite for LD• Using total economic value (TEV), compute cost of land

degradation & benefit of sustainable land management (SLM):

• Use Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land use change data to compute the change in value of ecosystem services

• Use crop and livestock simulation models to compute the cost of LD on crop and grazing lands

• Develop statistical model for computing grazing land biomass productivity using NDVI

Global extent of land degradation & improvement:With & without correction for carbonFertilization (CF) & rainfall variability (RV)

Extent of anthropogenic land degradation & improvement: corrected for FC & RV

Source: Bao et al 2014

Unlike Bai et al (2008), land degradationIs seen in poor and rich countries & in tropical & temperate regions

Land degradation: no correction for CF & RVLoss of Net Primary Production between 1981-2003 – Bai et al 2008Cartography: Valerie Graw; Data Source: FAO GeoNetwork

Why LD in North America, Australia & East Europe? Forest fire & logging increasing

Forest fire hotspots

Source: http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.de/2012/03/happy-birthday-envisat.html

Global cost of land degradation

Global cost of land degradation – regional distribution

Total cost due to LUCC & use of land degrading management practices ≈ US$300 billion

Regional distribution of ecosystem services stock value and cost of land degradation due to LUCC

Who bears the heaviest burden of the cost of land degradation due to LUCC? The world!!

What is the cost of action & inaction against Land Degradation?

RegionCost of Action

Cost of Inaction

Cost of action as % of cost of inaction

MRRa of action against LD

30-year planning horizon, 2007 US$ billion

SSA 686 3226 21 5

LAC 825 3289 25 4

NAM 792 5147 15 6

East Asia 681 2910 23 4

Oceania 429 2899 15 7

South Asia 263 636 41 2

SE Asia 165 431 38 3

East Europe 815 5359 15 7

West Europe 221 102122

5

Central Asia 53 350 15 7

NENA 77 672 12 9

Total 5007 25939 19 5

High

cos

t of i

nact

ion

& h

igh

retu

rns t

o ta

king

act

ion

• SSA accounts for the most significant loss & Europe experiences the least cost

• Hotspots of high costs of land degradation in both low and high income countries

• Land user direct impact on land degradation is only 46%. Incidence of loss lies heavily on the global community and on off-site communities

• Therefore:• Land degradation is everyone’s problem

• All cause LD• All are affected by LD• All benefit from restoration of degraded lands• So all should take action against LD

Taking action against land degradation

• The cost of taking action is only 20% of the cost of inaction. This means, the returns to taking action are quite high

• Sustainable development goals & increasing land value are among major opportunities for taking action against LD

• It is time to take action against land degradation – just as YacoubaSawadogo did!!

Acknowledgement

• BMZ/GIZ provided funding for this study• Many sources provided data and support for the study.