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Impacts of socio-economic and climate changes on water, food, bioenergy, land use, and ecosystems
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  • Tokuta Yokohata,
  • Tsuguki Kinoshita,
  • Gen Sakurai,
  • Shinichiro Fujimori,
  • Yadu Pokhrel,
  • Akihiko Ito,
  • Yusuke Satoh,
  • Etsushi Kato,
  • Masashi Okada,
  • Kaoru Tachiiri,
  • Ken'ichi Matsumoto,
  • Seita Emori,
  • Kiyoshi Takahashi
Tokuta Yokohata
National Institute for Environmental Studies

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Tsuguki Kinoshita
Ibaraki University
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Gen Sakurai
National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences
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Shinichiro Fujimori
Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University
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Yadu Pokhrel
Michigan State University
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Akihiko Ito
National Institute for Environmental Studies
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Yusuke Satoh
National Institute for Environmental Studies
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Etsushi Kato
Institute of Applied Energy
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Masashi Okada
National Institute for Environmental Studies
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Kaoru Tachiiri
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
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Ken'ichi Matsumoto
Toyo University
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Seita Emori
National Institute for Environmental Studies
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Kiyoshi Takahashi
National Institute for Environmental Studies
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Abstract

Future socio-economic and climate changes can profoundly impact water resources, food production, bioenergy generation, and land use, leading to a broad range of societal problems. In this study, we performed future projections by using a land integrated model, MIROC-INTEG-LAND, that considers land surface physics, ecosystems, water management, crop growth, and land use, under various socio-economic scenarios (Shared Socio-economic Pathways, SSPs). Under the sustainability scenario (SSP1), demands for food and bioenergy are kept low, so that the increase in cropland areas for food and bioenergy are suppressed. On the contrary, in the middle of the road and regional rivalry scenarios (SSP2 and SSP3), cropland areas are projected to increase due to high demand for food and bioenergy. The expansion of cropland areas is projected to increase the water demand for irrigation and CO2 emissions due to land use change. MIROC-INTEG-LAND simulations indicate that the impacts of the CO2 fertilization effect and climate change on crop yields are comparable, with the latter being greater than the former under climate scenarios with high greenhouse gas concentrations. We also show that the CO2 fertilization effects and climate change play important roles in changes in food cropland area, water demand for irrigation, and CO2 emissions due to land use change. Our results underscore the importance of considering Earth-human system interactions when developing future socio-economic scenarios and studying climate change impacts.