An open-access method for targeting revegetation based on potential for emissions reduction, carbon sequestration and opportunity cost

• Autores: Andrew Longmire, Chris Taylor, Craig J. Pearson
• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 42, 2015, págs. 578-585
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We propose a simple heuristic that uses open-access models and government data on agricultural activities to estimate total carbon emissions from agriculture, the gross carbon benefit and the opportunity cost per tonne CO2-e from revegetating to environmental plantings or plantation forestry. We test this across ten areas of mixed land-use that represent diverse Australian agricultural systems along a rainfall transect. The local value of agricultural production was obtained from government statistics and used to estimate the current economic opportunity cost of converting cleared agricultural land to mixed environmental plantings for carbon sequestration. Gross carbon benefit from revegetation was closely related to current agricultural use, as was financial opportunity cost. These were not related simply to site productivity potential or rainfall. The proportion of land cleared for agriculture that would need to be re-vegetated to achieve a localised zero-carbon land-use scenario was calculated by the ratio of current agricultural emissions to gross carbon benefit from revegetation; this ranged from 13% to 66% for groups of agricultural industries across Australian rainfall transects. While the heuristic does not capture the detail of models built specifically for local research questions it does provide a different lens on the questions policy makers and land managers may ask about the costs and benefits of revegetating agricultural land, and provides open-access methods to guide them.