Land use is a crucial link between human activities and the natural environment and one of the main driving forces of global environmental change. Large parts of the terrestrial land surface are used for agriculture, forestry, settlements and infrastructure. Given the importance of land use, it is essential to understand the multitude of influential factors and resulting land use patterns. An essential methodology to study and quantify such interactions is provided by the adoption of land-use models. By the application ...

Änderungen im Landsystem sind eine zentrale anthropogene Ursache globaler Klima- und Umweltveränderungen. Der stetig wachsende Bedarf an landwirtschaftlichen Flächen für Nahrung, Futter, Fasern und Energie und die damit verbundene Konversion natürlicher Ökosysteme gelten als wesentliche Triebkräfte der Landänderungen. Globale räumlich-explizite Landsystemmodelle tragen dazu bei, ein besseres wissenschaftliches Verständnis für derartige Landänderungsprozesse zu erlangen und zukünftige Entwicklungen mit Szenarien zu ...

Land use has become a force of global importance, considering that 34% of the Earth’s ice-free surface was covered by croplands or pastures in 2000. The expected increase in global human population together with eminent climate change and associated search for energy sources other than fossil fuels can, through land-use and land-cover changes (LUCC), increase the pressure on nature’s resources, further degrade ecosystem services, and disrupt other planetary systems of key importance to humanity. This thesis presents ...

The 21st century has brought new challenges for forest management at a time when globalization in world trade is increasing and global climate change is becoming increasingly apparent. In addition to various goods and services like food, feed, timber or biofuels being provided to humans, forest ecosystems are a large store of terrestrial carbon and account for a major part of the carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface. Depending on the stage of the ecosystems and/or management regimes, forests ...

The supply of clean freshwater already poses challenges to some regions of the world and this situation is expected to worsen in the future. Improving water security is considered one of the major tasks of the 21st century. The Water Footprint (WF), used as umbrella term for established approaches, can contribute to this by correlating physical water use and water pollution with regional water availability and thus highlighting overuse. In order to derive directionally sound and meaningful recommendations for action, ...