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Research Article

Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools

Karen C. Seto, Burak Güneralp, and Lucy R. Hutyra
PNAS October 2, 2012 109 (40) 16083-16088; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211658109
Karen C. Seto
aYale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511;
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  • For correspondence: karen.seto@yale.edu
Burak Güneralp
aYale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511;
bDepartment of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843; and
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Lucy R. Hutyra
cDepartment of Geography and Environment, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215
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  1. Edited by B. L. Turner, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, and approved August 16, 2012 (received for review July 10, 2012)

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Abstract

Urban land-cover change threatens biodiversity and affects ecosystem productivity through loss of habitat, biomass, and carbon storage. However, despite projections that world urban populations will increase to nearly 5 billion by 2030, little is known about future locations, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion. Here we develop spatially explicit probabilistic forecasts of global urban land-cover change and explore the direct impacts on biodiversity hotspots and tropical carbon biomass. If current trends in population density continue and all areas with high probabilities of urban expansion undergo change, then by 2030, urban land cover will increase by 1.2 million km2, nearly tripling the global urban land area circa 2000. This increase would result in considerable loss of habitats in key biodiversity hotspots, with the highest rates of forecasted urban growth to take place in regions that were relatively undisturbed by urban development in 2000: the Eastern Afromontane, the Guinean Forests of West Africa, and the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka hotspots. Within the pan-tropics, loss in vegetation biomass from areas with high probability of urban expansion is estimated to be 1.38 PgC (0.05 PgC yr−1), equal to ∼5% of emissions from tropical deforestation and land-use change. Although urbanization is often considered a local issue, the aggregate global impacts of projected urban expansion will require significant policy changes to affect future growth trajectories to minimize global biodiversity and vegetation carbon losses.

  • sustainability
  • land change science

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: karen.seto{at}yale.edu.
  • Author contributions: K.C.S. and B.G. designed research; K.C.S. and B.G. performed research; K.C.S., B.G., and L.R.H. analyzed data; and K.C.S., B.G., and L.R.H. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1211658109/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030
Karen C. Seto, Burak Güneralp, Lucy R. Hutyra
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2012, 109 (40) 16083-16088; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1211658109

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Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030
Karen C. Seto, Burak Güneralp, Lucy R. Hutyra
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2012, 109 (40) 16083-16088; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1211658109
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    • Abstract
    • Global Urban Expansion to 2030
    • Direct Impacts of Urban Expansion on Habitat and Biodiversity
    • Direct Impacts of Urban Expansion on Carbon Pools
    • Discussion
    • Conclusions
    • Materials and Methods
    • Acknowledgments
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