Florian Hartig Theoretical Ecology & Ecological Data Science

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The road to integrate climate change projections with regional land-use–biodiversity models

Juliano Sarmento Cabral, Alma Mendoza-Ponce, André Pinto da Silva, Johannes Oberpriller, Anne Mimet, Julia Kieslinger, Thomas Berger, Jana Blechschmidt, Maximilian Brönner, Alice Classen, Stefan Fallert, Florian Hartig, Christian Hof, Markus Hoffmann, Thomas Knoke, Andreas Krause, Anne Lewerentz, Perdita Pohle, Uta Raeder, Anja Rammig, Sarah Redlich, Sven Rubanschi, Christian Stetter, Wolfgang Weisser, Daniel Vedder, Peter H. Verburg, Damaris Zurell

People and Nature, 6(5), 1716–1741 (2024)
Cite this
@article{cabral2024road,
  author = {Juliano Sarmento Cabral and Alma Mendoza-Ponce and André Pinto da Silva and Johannes Oberpriller and Anne Mimet and Julia Kieslinger and Thomas Berger and Jana Blechschmidt and Maximilian Brönner and Alice Classen and Stefan Fallert and Florian Hartig and Christian Hof and Markus Hoffmann and Thomas Knoke and Andreas Krause and Anne Lewerentz and Perdita Pohle and Uta Raeder and Anja Rammig and Sarah Redlich and Sven Rubanschi and Christian Stetter and Wolfgang Weisser and Daniel Vedder and Peter H. Verburg and Damaris Zurell},
  title = {The road to integrate climate change projections with regional land-use–biodiversity models},
  journal = {People and Nature},
  volume = {6},
  number = {5},
  pages = {1716–1741},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.1002/pan3.10472},
}

DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10472
Cited by 37 (Google Scholar) · 25 (OpenAlex), as of 07 September 2026

View article (DOI)

Abstract

Current approaches to project spatial biodiversity responses to climate change mainly focus on the direct effects of climate on species while regarding land use and land cover as constant or prescribed by global land-use scenarios. However, local land-use decisions are often affected by climate change and biodiversity on top of socioeconomic and policy drivers. To realistically understand and predict climate impacts on biodiversity, it is therefore necessary to integrate both direct and indirect effects (via climate-driven land-use change) of climate change on biodiversity. In this perspective paper, we outline how biodiversity models could be better integrated with regional, climate-driven land-use models, providing a short review of empirical and modelling approaches to land-use and land-cover change (LU) and biodiversity (BD) change at regional scales, with a special emphasis on mechanistic models. We find that LU integration in BD models is more frequent than the other way around and has been achieved at different levels, from overlapping predictions to simultaneously coupled simulations. Important research avenues include concerted efforts in harmonizing spatial and temporal resolution, disentangling direct and indirect effects of climate change on biodiversity, explicitly accounting for bidirectional feedbacks, and ultimately feeding socio-ecological systems back into climate predictions. Recent developments of coupled models show that such integration is achievable and can lead to novel insights into climate-land use-biodiversity relations.

What the paper shows and why it matters (AI-generated)

Most biodiversity forecasts under climate change hold land use constant or borrow it from a global scenario, even though local land-use decisions are themselves driven by climate and biodiversity change, not just economics and policy. This roadmap paper reviews how far biodiversity models and regional land-use models have actually been coupled so far — not very, and mostly in one direction — and sets out what integrating them properly would take: matching spatial and temporal resolution, disentangling direct from land-use-mediated climate effects, and closing the feedback loop back into the land-use projections themselves. Recent citing work, from ecosystem-service modelling to land-use-network feedback models, suggests that agenda is starting to be picked up.