Lennart Olsson

Lund University | LU · Centre for Sustainability Studies

Non-technical summary Agriculture has been dominated by annual plants, such as all cereals and oilseeds, since the very beginning of civilization over 10,000 years ago. Annual plants are planted and uprooted every year which results in severe disturbance of the soil and disrupts ecosystem services. Science has shown that it is possible to domestica...

Projecting land-use allocation under various scenarios can be useful for reconciling conflicts between urbanization , food security, and ecological integrity throughout landscapes, but existing approaches often fail to capture the interactions in land systems that occur across scales and within and between hierarchical jurisdictions of societal org...

The impacts of climate change on rural cultures and livelihoods depend on how the resulting complex biophysical processes may transform people’s land use practices. We argue that research can incorporate local concerns of compound hazards through deterministic rather than probabilistic approaches to better understand the multiple causations involve...

Land degradation threatens livelihoods with the potential to displace vulnerable groups, yet its impacts on migration are poorly understood as environmental migration research mainly focuses on the impacts of climate change on migration. We argue that addressing this gap is vital as land degradation poses risks for sustainability.

For millennia, agriculture has been shaping landscapes on Earth. Technological change has increased agricultural productivity dramatically, especially in the past six decades, but also resulted in trade-offs such as land and soil degradation, emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and spreading of toxic substances. In this article we review the impac...

Climate change affects the functioning of all of the components of food systems, often in ways that exacerbate existing predicaments and inequalities among regions of the world and groups in society. At the same time, food systems are a major cause of climate change, accounting for a third of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, food syst...

The Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) aims at combatting land degradation while achieving socio-economic development across the Sahel through a mosaic of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and restoration practices. As the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the main funding mechanism for Land Degradation Neutrality related projects, we have analy...

Scientific assessments, such as those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), inform policymakers and the public about the state of scientific evidence and related uncertainties. We studied how experts from different scientific disciplines who were authors of IPCC reports, interpret the uncertainty language recommended in the Guida...

The Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) is a pan-African program launched in 2007 to combat land degradation and bring about both ecological and socio-economic benefits in the Sahel. With projects in place on only one-fifth of the targeted land and uncertainty about the extent of positive impacts, there is a need for improved monitoring and evaluati...

The question whether a single extreme climate event, such as a hurricane or heatwave, can be attributed to human induced climate change has become a vibrant field of research and discussion in recent years. Proponents of the most common approach (probabilistic event attribution) argue for using single event attribution for advancing climate policy,...

In recent years, a dispute has arisen within detection and attribution science concerning the appropriate methodology for associating individual weather events with anthropogenic climate change. In recent contributions, it has been highlighted that this conflict is seemingly misconstrued even by those participating in it and actually concerns a mix...

Sociological insights are often underutilized in sustainability science. To further strengthen its commitment to interdisciplinary problem-driven, solutions-oriented research, sustainability science can better incorporate fundamental sociological conceptions into its core. We highlight four aspects of sociological thought that we consider crucial f...

Land degradation continues to be an enormous challenge to human societies, reducing food security, emitting greenhouse gases and aerosols, driving the loss of biodiversity, polluting water, and undermining a wide range of ecosystem services beyond food supply and water and climate regulation. Climate change will exacerbate several degradation proce...

Fod Systems Summit Brief Prepared by Research Partners of the Scientific Group for the Food Systems Summit, May 2021

Sustainability science is an integrative scientific field embracing not only complementary but also contradictory approaches and perspectives for dealing with an array of sustainability challenges.

This is the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC Special Report on Land and Climate Change, as approved by the IPCC member countries at the Plenary in Geneva, Aug 2-7 2019.

This chapter examines the scientific understanding of how climate change impacts land degradation, and vice versa, with a focus on non-drylands. Land degradation of drylands is covered in Chapter 3. After providing definitions and the context (Section 4.1) we proceed with a theoretical explanation of the different processes of land degradation and...

p>The social sciences have engaged since the late 1980s in international collaborative programmes to study questions of sustainability and global change. This article offers an in-depth analysis of the largest long-standing social-science network in this field: the Earth System Governance Project. Originating as a core project of the former Interna...

The calls for evidence-based public policy making have increased dramatically in the last decades, and so has the interest in evidence-based sustainability studies. But questions remain about what "evidence" actually means in different contexts and if the concept travels well between different domains of application. Some of the most relevant quest...

Full- text available through the IPCC website: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

Non-technical summary Modern agriculture is associated with numerous environmental predicaments, such as land degradation, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emission. Socio-economically, it is characterized by a treadmill of technological change, increased mechanization, and economic consolidation, while depressing economic returns to farmers. A...

Interdisciplinary research within the field of sustainability studies often faces incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The importance of this fact is often underrated and sometimes leads to the wrong strategies. We distinguish between two broad approaches in interdisciplinarity: unificationism and pluralis...

Sustainability science is a wide and integrative scientific field. It embraces both complementary and contradictory approaches and perspectives for dealing with newer sustainability challenges in the context of old and persistent social problems. In this article we suggest a combined approach called social fields and natural systems. It builds on f...

In recent years, a strong natural science hegemony has predominantly framed our understanding of sustainability challenges and, as a result, the production of solution strategies. In countering this, some academic centers have sought to promote interdisciplinary research, starting from the recognition that the scale and complexity of sustainability...

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary c...

This article addresses a central debate in combatting climate change: whether we should focus on reducing CO2 emissions or on removing the emitted CO2 from the atmosphere. We favor the former by arguing against the economic viability of the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) branch of geoengineering. This is of course not a question of either or, but we...

A promising approach for addressing sustainability problems is to recognize the unique conditions of a particular place, such as problem features and solution capabilities, and adopt and adapt solutions developed at other places around the world. Therefore, research and teaching in international networks becomes critical, as it allows for accelerat...

Methodological issues were raised by Wessels (2009) regarding the GLADA assessment, chiefly the interpretation of RUE outside arid and semiarid regions, growing season differences between the northern and southern hemisphere and their implications for calendar year summations of NPP, and issues of scale in the interpretation of AVHRR NDVI vs. MODIS...

Given the diversity of the biophysical and socioeconomic processes involved, the types, extent, and severity of land degradation cannot be encapsulated by a few simple measures (Stocking and Murnaghan 2000). In the assessment of land degradation or changes in land productivity, two complementary approaches may be distinguished:

A substantial body of research has established the correlation between NDVI and aboveground biomass, and knowledge of the theoretical basis for using satellite-derived NDVI as a general proxy for vegetation conditions has advanced (Mbow et al. 2014; Pettorelli et al. 2005; Sellers et al. 1994). Reduction of primary productivity is a reliable indica...

Technological barriers: Currently, most global datasets useful for environmental applications are archived in databases that can be accessed using the Internet. These include the GIMMS, NOAA-PAL, LTD, and FASIR datasets. There are also free online data service platforms for executing preprocessing operations (such as data smoothing, spatial and tem...

In the late 1960s, several researchers began using red and near-infrared reflected light to study vegetation (Pearson and Miller 1972). In the late 1960s, ratios of red and near-infrared light were used to assess turf grass condition and tropical rain forest leaf area index (Birth and McVey 1968; Jordan 1969). Compton Tucker was the first to use it...

Coarse spatial resolution datasets are invaluable at the global scale, but they lack the thematic and spatial detail required for habitat assessments at the country level and for finer-resolution assessments such as vegetation species distribution or high-quality forest-change monitoring. Mapping, monitoring, and assessments at the national and sub...

For ecological studies and environmental change research, Pettorelli et al. (2005) distinguish two main groups of satellite products:

As discussed in the Introduction, both the UNCCD and the GEF use land cover to monitor land degradation. The UNCCD progress indicators (formerly known as impact indicators) should show progress made in achieving long-term benefits for people living in areas affected by desertification, land degradation, and drought, for affected ecosystems, and for...

During the past half century, NDVI has been widely used for vegetation mapping and monitoring as well as in the assessment of land-cover and associated changes. This is because remotely sensed satellite-derived datasets provide spatially continuous data (data that are not sampled at individual points) and yield time-series signatures from which tem...

Early assessments of land degradation like the Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD) (Oldeman et al. 1990) were compilations of expert opinion. They are unrepeatable and systematic data show them to be unreliable (Sonneveld and Dent 2009). Under the FAO/UNEP program Land Degradation in Drylands (LADA), Bai et al. (2008) undertook a global...

This report examines the scientific basis for the use of remotely sensed data, particularly NDVI, in land degradation assessments at different scales and for a range of applications. It draws evidence from a wide range of investigations, primarily from the scientific peer-reviewed literature but also non-journal sources.

Resilience is often promoted as a boundary concept to integrate the social and natural dimensions of sustainability. However, it is a troubled dialogue from which social scientists may feel detached. To explain this, we first scrutinize the meanings, attributes, and uses of resilience in ecology and elsewhere to construct a typology of definitions....

Arresting land degradation, not to mention remediation, requires long-term investment. Budgetary constraints mean that we have to prioritise, so decision makers need know exactly where and how severe is the degradation, and they need early warning to act in good time. The first global assessment using actual measurements was based on 23 years of Ad...

This report examines the scientific basis for the use of remotely sensed data, particularly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), primarily for the assessment of land degradation at different scales and for a range of applications, including resilience of agro-ecosystems. Evidence is drawn from a wide range of investigations, primarily fro...

Comprehensive assessments have shown the wide variety of severe environmental problems facing and caused by humanity (e.g. Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2013 ; IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 ; MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) 2005 ; Mitchell et al. 2006 ). These problems result largely from the activities of a human population who...

In this special issue of the Journal of Environment and Development, we present results from the research project Globalisation Informed by Sustainable Development (GLOBIS), 2009-2014, funded by the European Union Framework Programme 7. Starting from and focusing on international policies on agriculture, energy, innovation, migration, and transport...

Despite widely recognised and well-established benefits, it is difficult to adopt the multifunctional activity of agroforestry into the landscape and lifeworld of small-scale agriculture, if poverty, itself a main reason for adopting agroforestry, stands in its way. Based on participant observations and interviews with small-scale farmers in wester...

According to WGI, it is very likely that the number and intensity of hot days have increased markedly in the last three decades and virtually certain that this increase will continue into the late 21st century. In addition, it is likely (medium confidence) that the occurrence of heat waves (multiple days of hot weather in a row) has more than doubl...

An assessment of policy options for future global climate governance, written by a team of leading experts from the European Union and developing countries. Global climate governance is at a crossroads. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was merely a first step, and its core commitments expire in 2012. This book addresses three questions which will be central...

Cooking over open fire with solid fuels results in incomplete combustion and indoor air pollution (IAP) causing respiratory and other diseases leading to nearly two million premature deaths per year. In urban areas, IAP interacts with outdoor pollutants in toxic chemical mixtures affecting also other citizens and damaging regional air quality in te...

Agroforestry can contribute to the mitigation of climate change while delivering multiple benefits to sub-Saharan farmers who are exposed to climate variability, land degradation, water scarcity, high disease burden and persistent poverty. But adoption is slow. Based on a critical problem solving approach and grounded theory as a strategy, we study...

Over the last decade, sustainability science has been at the leading edge of widespread efforts from the social and natural sciences to produce use-inspired research. Yet, how knowledge generated by sustainability science and allied fields will contribute to transitions toward sustainability remains a critical theoretical and empirical question for...

The United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro in June is an important opportunity to improve the institutional framework for sustainable development.

The current institutional framework for sustainable development is by far not strong enough to bring about the swift transformative progress that is needed. This article contends that incrementalism—the main approach since the 1972 Stockholm Conference—will not suffice to bring about societal change at the level and speed needed to mitigate and ada...

The field of sustainability science aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between natural and human systems in order to transform and develop these in a sustainable manner. As sustainability problems cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, interdisciplinarit...

Science assessments indicate that human activities are moving several of Earth's sub-systems outside the range of natural variability typical for the previous 500,000 years (1, 2). Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change (3). This require...

We combine frame analysis and transition theory into a thinking tool in sustainability science and analyse three serious and persistent problems in global health subject to sustainability impasses: HIV/AIDS, malaria, and indoor air pollution. Frame analysis identifies how problems are encased by scientific understandings and captured by transition...

Land degradation, as a threat to smallholders in the tropics, attracts less attention than other global challenges. In addition, gaps between scientific understandings of land degradation and international policy regimes are problematic. We identify the three most significant debates including their different policy implications: desertification in...

It is urgent in science and society to address climate change and other sustainability challenges such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, depletion of marine fish stocks, global ill-health, land degradation, land use change and water scarcity. Sustainability science (SS) is an attempt to bridge the natural and social sciences for seeking creative...

Sustainability science needs approaches that allow for the integration of knowledge across disciplines and scales. This paper suggests an approach to conceptualize problems of unsustainability by embedding the Drivers–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) scheme within a multi-level institutional framework represented by Hägerstrand’s system of ne...

One billion vulnerable subsistence farmers across the global south depend on risky livelihoods in need of adaptation to climate change impacts. Simultaneously, their aggregated emission of greenhouse gases from land use and fuelwood consumption is substantial. Synergies between adaptation to climate change and mitigation should therefore be activel...

This paper examines two failed land acquisition processes for food and biofuels production in Africa with the aim to establishing more equitable governance strategies. More specifically it explores the roles of certification schemes and codes-of-conduct can play in these processes. The two cases used are the South Korean Daewoo Logistics case in Ma...

Effective responses to desertification have always been hampered by a lack of a scientific understanding and reliable data on the extent and severity of land degradation. We also argue that the poor scientific understanding of desertification is partly a consequence of the lack of reliable data. Policy development has to a large extent relied upon...

In order to develop the concepts of access and allocation – central to the Earth System Governance project – we define and describe three dimensions of justice and fairness that need to be recognised in ESG. The dimensions are international, intergenerational, and intersectional justice and fairness. Each dimension of justice and fairness is illumi...

Climate and environmental change are allegedly closely linked to the proliferation of infectious diseases, particularly neglected tropical diseases (NTD). In spite of this link, earth observation techniques are under-utilised in health services in developing countries. This paper outlines a research strategy, leading to a proof-of-concept, by which...

Object‐oriented classification approaches offer an alternative to per‐pixel methods for assessment of land use and land cover. Combining object‐oriented approaches with very high resolution imagery may provide enhanced possibilities for applications requiring land use and land cover data. The aim of this study is to evaluate the application of obje...

Land degradation is always with us but its causes, extent and severity are contested. We define land degradation as a long-term decline in ecosystem function and productivity, which may be assessed using long-term, remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data. Deviation from the norm may serve as a proxy assessment of land deg...

Risk minimization is no longer a sufficient survival strategy for poor people in livelihood systems increasingly exposed to frequent extreme events. This calls for comprehensive adaptation to climate change. Within the climate change regime, adaptation is as central as mitigation but needs to be much more explicitly addressed at local, national and...

Agricultural systems continuously evolve and are forced to change as a result of a range of global and local driving forces. Agricultural technologies and agricultural, environmental and rural development policies are increasingly designed to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and to enhance contributions of agricultural syste...