Biodiversity Impacts of Climate and Land Use Change

Climate change and land use change represent the two most pervasive pressures on global biodiversity, operating through both independent and interactive pathways. Rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns and increased frequency of extreme events disrupt species’ physiological tolerances and phenological cycles, driving range shifts, local extinctions and community reassembly. Simultaneously, conversion of natural habitats to agriculture, urban areas or resource extraction drastically reduces habitat extent, fragments landscapes and degrades ecosystem quality. The combined effects of these drivers often exceed the sum of their parts: species forced into suboptimal fragmented patches by land clearance are less able to migrate in response to shifting climate envelopes, while altered microclimates in cleared or degraded landscapes exacerbate thermal and hydric stress. Impacts are taxonomically and regionally uneven, with tropical hotspots and narrow-ranged taxa facing the greatest extinction risk. Recent advances in modelling have enabled more integrated assessments of joint climate and land use scenarios, revealing potential cumulative species losses approaching 40 percent under business-as-usual trajectories by mid-century. At the same time, improvements in biodiversity indicators and life-cycle impact methods are refining our capacity to link policy and practice to on-the-ground outcomes. Strategic combinations of stringent greenhouse-gas mitigation, sustainable land management and targeted habitat protection emerge as critical levers to bend the curve of global biodiversity decline.

Research from Nature Portfolio

One global account of land-use impacts on terrestrial vertebrates quantifies the proportion of species and habitat lost under current land-use patterns, explicitly distinguishing the effects of land-use intensity. Results indicate that nearly 15 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species are lost outside wilderness areas, with low-intensity land use alone accounting for roughly one quarter of the total impact. Regional differences in intensity metrics highlight data gaps and underscore the need for refined sustainable intensification strategies.

Analyses of historical and future species’ range sizes reconstruct habitat changes from the year 1700 through 2100 across alternative climate and socio-economic pathways. Findings reveal that species have already lost around 18 percent of their natural habitat and may lose up to 23 percent by 2100. Disproportionate range loss in tropical biodiversity hotspots emphasises the urgent need for conservation measures tailored to regions projected to suffer the greatest declines.

Modelling the interplay between stringent greenhouse-gas mitigation and land-based mitigation efforts demonstrates that aggressive climate stabilisation policies generally benefit global biodiversity, despite potential habitat conversion for bioenergy and afforestation. However, regions with intense land-based mitigation ambitions, particularly in Europe and Oceania, may experience net biodiversity losses unless mitigation is paired with robust land-use regulations and societal transformation aimed at minimising natural-habitat conversion.

Biodiversity Impacts of Climate and Land Use Change publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in biodiversity impacts of climate and land use change across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Land-use intensity: The degree to which land management practices (such as fertilisation, irrigation or grazing pressure) alter habitat structure and resource availability.

Species–Area Relationship: A model describing how the number of species increases with the size of a habitat area, used to estimate extinction risks from habitat loss.

Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs): Scenarios outlining possible future trajectories of global society, economy and demographics that influence greenhouse-gas emissions and land use.

Habitat fragmentation: The process by which continuous habitats are divided into smaller, isolated patches, often impairing species dispersal and population viability.

Characterisation factors: Quantitative coefficients linking specific pressures (e.g. land conversion, greenhouse-gas emissions) to potential biodiversity impacts within impact assessment frameworks.

References

1. Critical review of methods and models for biodiversity impact assessment and their applicability in the LCA context. Environmental Impact Assessment Review (2023).
2. Biodiversity Impact Assessment Considering Land Use Intensities and Fragmentation. Environmental Science and Technology (2023).
3. Future effects of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate community diversity under different scenarios. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2018).
4. Biodiversity can benefit from climate stabilization despite adverse side effects of land-based mitigation. Nature Communications (2019).
5. Historical and projected future range sizes of the world’s mammals, birds, and amphibians. Nature Communications (2020).
6. Relative effects of land conversion and land-use intensity on terrestrial vertebrate diversity. Nature Communications (2022).