Global urban expansion offsets climate-driven increases in terrestrial net primary productivity.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31804470.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-13462-1 and PMC identifier 6895113.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The global urbanization rate is accelerating; however, data limitations have far prevented robust estimations of either global urban expansion or its effects on terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP). Here, using a high resolution dataset of global land use/cover (GlobeLand30), we show that global urban areas expanded by an average of 5694 km<sup>2</sup> per year between 2000 and 2010. The rapid urban expansion in the past decade has in turn reduced global terrestrial NPP, with a net loss of 22.4 Tg Carbon per year (Tg C year<sup>-1</sup>). Although small compared to total terrestrial NPP and fossil fuel carbon emissions worldwide, the urbanization-induced decrease in NPP offset 30% of the climate-driven increase (73.6 Tg C year<sup>-1</sup>) over the same period. Our findings highlight the urgent need for global strategies to address urban expansion, enhance natural carbon sinks, and increase agricultural productivity.