Global Patterns of Changing Agricultural Land Use in Drought Regions

Abstract:

Understanding how agriculture land use changes in response to severe climate anomalies such as drought is important both for food security and because agricultural practices can have long term implications for local environments and climates. However, since land use responses vary across different geographic and socioeconomic contexts, it is challenging to build a comprehensive scheme that can be applied in global land use or climate models. This study uses Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land use characterizations along with ecological indicators such as normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to evaluate cropland changes in regions impacted by drought from 2001 to 2018. We analyze cropland trajectories relative to regional trends, and then classify the patterns using a variety of socioeconomic and geographic metrics. We find that regions that experienced anomalous dryness were associated with cropland loss relative to regional trends, but that the magnitude and type of the differences depended highly on non-physical factors including economics and national land use trajectories. By developing these patterns of cropland responses, we aim to lay the foundation for a model projecting land use changes in response to drought across a variety of geographic and socioeconomic contexts.