Campbell, Colin
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- The James Hutton Institute
Research article2012Peer reviewed
Land use and a low-carbon society
Campbell, Colin; Lilly, Allan; Towers, Willie; Chapman, Stephen J.; Werritty, Alan; Hanley, Nick
Abstract
Land use and the management of our natural resources such as soils and water offer great opportunities to sequester carbon and mitigate the effects of climate change. Actions on forestry, soil carbon and damaged peatlands each have the potential to reduce Scottish emissions in 2020 by hundreds of thousands of tonnes. Most actions to reduce emissions from land use have beneficial effects on other ecosystem services, so if we can cut emissions we can in many circumstances improve the environment. The cost of reducing emissions through land use change can be low in relation to other means of cutting emissions. The Scottish Land Use Strategy and the Ecosystem Approach it calls for, employing the concept of ecosystem services, offers a way of balancing environmental, social and economic demands on the land. Scotland's land, soils, forests and waters are all likely to be significantly altered by future climate change. Each of these components of the land-based environment offers opportunities for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The emerging new imperatives for securing food, water and energy at a global level are equally important for Scotland, and interact with the need for environmental security and for dealing with climate change.
Keywords
adaptation; carbon sequestration; climate change; ecosystem services; ecosystem approach; forestry; greenhouse gas emissions; mitigation; soil; water
Published in
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
2012, volume: 103, number: 2, pages: 165-173
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG6 Clean water and sanitation
SDG13 Climate action
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Sciences
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755691013000066
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/60059