Spatial planning for climate change: Land use for conservation, agriculture, and energy

About

Conservation planners have developed extensive tools to identify conservation priorities and guide the development of effective protected areas. However, few account for future shifts in species distributions and rising land demands for energy and food production – despite the importance of these factors for long-term conservation success. As demand for agriculture and renewable energy rises, potential conflicts with natural areas increase, resulting in what’s called a “land squeeze” – demand for more land uses than there is land.  

For example, countries across Africa are setting goals for carbon, conservation, development, agriculture, and renewable energy. However, there simply isn’t enough land to reach all these targets. In collaboration with Conservation International, Spatial Planning for Climate Change: Land Use for Conservation, Agriculture, and Energy (SPARCLE) integrates projections of climate-driven species movements with assessments of where land will be needed to meet growing agricultural and energy demands. SPARCLE offers a way to help decision-makers navigate these trade-offs and identify land-use strategies that benefit both biodiversity and people.

SPARCLE is currently being tailored to key geographies where local priorities and data can inform the modeling approach. Our team is focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, a region expected to undergo rapid population growth this century which will place increasing pressure on its unique and biodiverse land systems. A large component of the Sub-Saharan Africa model is an integrated carbon metric, designed to help identify land-use strategies that minimize carbon losses while meeting human development needs. 

Approach

The SPARCLE team is leveraging economic and climate predictions of future land needs with models of species range shifts to understand the scale and spatial patterns of change under different scenarios. We are using a prioritization approach to identify improved spatial arrangements of land use that better conserve biodiversity while still maintaining projected land-use needs. 

SPARCLE uses a comprehensive "Protect, Manage, Restore" (PMR) framework to address the complex challenges of land-use in Sub-Saharan Africa:

1. Protect: Identifying and preserving critical conservation areas to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services.
2. Manage: Implementing sustainable management practices on active-use lands such as agriculture and rangelands to balance productivity with conservation goals.
3. Restore: Revitalizing degraded lands through ecological restoration efforts to enhance ecosystem health and resilience.

We are running these analyses to develop 1) climate change scenarios and 2) target scenarios. These scenarios will be used by decision-makers across Sub-Saharan Africa, including government agencies and conservation planners, to define clear targets that can be integrated into the SPARCLE prioritization model. This flexible approach ensures that our land-use planning remains relevant and effective across a range of possible futures.

Partners

Not only does SPARCLE collaborate closely with scientific experts throughout Africa and governments and financial decision-makers in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, the project is in collaboration with Conservation International (CI) as part of the Arnhold UC Santa Barbara-Conservation International Climate Solutions Collaborative. UCSB and CI launched this initiative through generous support from John Arnold (UCSB '75) to unify their demonstrated expertise and networks to conduct cutting-edge applied research to yield tangible, progressive solutions and propel the careers of emerging environmental professionals.