Assessing the impact of cultivating new agricultural land on habitat & biodivesrity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and food production

为可持续地养活世界不断增长的人口的挑战找到解决方案是一项跨越许多学科的紧迫研究需求。NSERC Discovery应用程序建议进行一系列全球评估，使我们能够量化气候变化如何为新的土地管理战略（例如农业扩张）创造机会，这些战略可能会促进全球粮食生产，但可能会造成负面的环境后果。例如，虽然开辟新的农业用地（称为“农业前沿”）可能为粮食生产创造新的机会，但这样做也可能意味着改变目前储存大量碳的宝贵森林栖息地的土地。这种权衡有多重要？有没有发展道路可以让人类在不牺牲环境的情况下利用农业前沿？为了回答这些问题，该研究计划旨在：（1）利用土壤和气候数据确定潜在农业前沿的范围和位置;（2）探索发展农业前沿可以通过增加粮食产量来帮助人类适应气候变化的程度;以及（3）识别潜在的负面环境后果，如二氧化碳排放量增加、土壤侵蚀和由于砍伐森林和种植而导致的栖息地丧失。将利用全球数据集探讨这些问题（包括气候模型输出、土壤图、地形信息和生境数据），使我们能够进行一系列空间上明确的分析，以确定可能的农业边界，哪些农作物可能适合在这些边界种植，以及这种土地利用变化可能对土壤退化产生的影响，碳和生物多样性的损失。了解开发农业前沿的土地使用和环境影响，将填补气候变化适应文献中的一个重大空白，这些文献目前推测不断变化的天气模式如何可能开辟新的种植领域，这是一种潜在的适应战略。由于许多这些所谓的农业前沿在北方纬度，这个问题是特别相关的加拿大和了解的情况下，这些土地可以可持续地访问应有助于确定政策和发展战略，可以使加拿大在经济上以及加拿大的位置，以帮助解决全球粮食安全的需要在未来。

Finding solutions to the challenge of sustainably feeding the world’s growing population is a pressing research need that cuts across many disciplines. This NSERC Discovery application proposes to conduct a series of global assessments that will allow us to quantify how climate change may create opportunities for new land management strategies (e.g. the expansion of agriculture) that may boost global food production but may cause negative environmental consequences. For instance, while cultivating new agricultural land (called “agricultural frontiers”) may create new opportunities for food production, doing so also likely means converting land that is currently valuable forest habitat that stores a huge amount of carbon. How significant are such tradeoffs? And are there development pathways that will allow humanity to utilize agricultural frontiers without sacrificing the environment? To answer such questions, this research program aims to: (1) identify the extent and location of potential agricultural frontiers using soils and climate data; (2) explore the extent to which developing agricultural frontiers may help humanity adapt to climate change through increased food production; and (3) identify potential negative environmental consequences such as increased CO2 emissions, soil erosion and habitat loss due to deforestation and cultivation. These issues will be explored by using global data sets (including climate model outputs, soil maps, topographical information, and habitat data) that will allow us to conduct a series of spatially explicit analyses that will identify possible agricultural frontiers, what agricultural crops might be suitable for growing in these frontiers, and what the possible impacts such land use changes might have with respect to soil degradation, the loss of carbon, and biodiversity. Understanding the land use and environmental impact of developing agricultural frontiers will fill a major gap in the climate change adaptation literature that currently speculates on how shifting weather patterns may open new areas up to cultivation and that this represents a potential adaptation strategy. Since many of these so-called agricultural frontiers are in northern latitudes, this issue is particularly relevant to Canada and understanding scenarios by which these lands can be accessed sustainably shall help identify policy and development strategies that could benefit Canada economically as well as position Canada to help address global food security needs in the future.