Projected land-use changes in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways: Insights and implications.

The conceptualization of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) framework represented a major leap in scenario development in the context of global environmental change and sustainability, providing significant advances from the previous scenario frameworks-especially the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. It is highly likely that the SSP concept, along with its scenario narratives and their respective results, including land-use change projections, will play a substantial role in the forthcoming Sixth Assessment Report by the IPCC. Here, we offer some insights that could make the SSPs' projected future changes in global land use more comprehensive and also help improve the interpretability of such projections. For example, instead of focusing on the quantity of each land-use class at various time points which results only in a net change when change is detected between time points, we recommend that the projected gross gains and gross losses in each land-use class across all scenarios should also be considered. Overall, the insights presented could also help pave the way for stronger collaboration between the SSP-climate science community and the land system science community; such collaboration is much needed in addressing the challenges of global environmental change towards a climate-resilient sustainable development pathway.

Heat health risk assessment in Philippine cities using remotely sensed data and social-ecological indicators.

More than half of the world's population currently live in urban areas and are particularly at risk from the combined effects of the urban heat island phenomenon and heat increases due to climate change. Here, by using remotely sensed surface temperature data and social-ecological indicators, focusing on the hot dry season, and applying the risk framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we assessed the current heat health risk in 139 Philippine cities, which account for about 40% of the country's total population. The cities at high or very high risk are found in Metro Manila, where levels of heat hazard and exposure are high. The most vulnerable cities are, however, found mainly outside the national capital region, where sensitivity is higher and capacity to cope and adapt is lower. Cities with high levels of heat vulnerability and exposure must be prioritized for adaptation. Our results will contribute to risk profiling in the Philippines and to the understanding of city-level heat health risks in developing regions of the Asia-Pacific.

Scenario-based land abandonment projections: Method, application and implications.

Land abandonment, e.g. agricultural land abandonment, can result in various social and ecological impacts. It would thus be helpful if the extent and spatial pattern of future land abandonment could be projected. However, the trajectory of future land abandonment generally depends on various factors, including biophysical conditions and future changes in socioeconomic indicators in the area. In this study, we developed a general framework for a scenario-based land abandonment projection, featuring a coupled regional economic and spatially explicit land change modeling approach. We applied this framework in selected municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, under two socioeconomic development scenarios (2014-2050): low population and economic growth (LL scenario) and high population and economic growth (HH scenario). The case study results, which are also visualized through a set of hot spot maps, revealed that agricultural land abandonment would be more intense under the HH scenario due to the much higher future decline in farmer population driven by the shift in people's employment and main source of livelihood. Under the LL scenario, residential and urban land abandonment would be more profound because of the much higher future decline in total population. In general, our results provide insights into some plausible future socioeconomic changes, their interplay and their consequent land abandonment in the case study area, which would be useful in the context of forward-looking adaptive development planning. The proposed framework can be applied to other case study areas.

The future of Southeast Asia's forests.

While Southeast Asia's forests play important roles in biodiversity conservation and global carbon (C) balance, the region is also a deforestation hotspot. Here, we consider the five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) to portray a range of plausible futures for the region's forests, employing a state-of-the-art land change modelling procedure and remotely sensed data. We find that by 2050 under the worst-case scenario, SSP 3 (regional rivalry/a rocky road), the region's forests would shrink by 5.2 million ha. The region's aboveground forest carbon stock (AFCS) would decrease by 790 Tg C, 21% of which would be due to old-growth forest loss. Conversely, under the best-case scenario, SSP 1 (sustainability/taking the green road), the region is projected to gain 19.6 million ha of forests and 1651 Tg C of AFCS. The choice of the pathway is thus critical for the future of the region's forests and their ecosystem functions and services.

A review of quality of life (QOL) assessments and indicators: Towards a "QOL-Climate" assessment framework.

Quality of life (QOL), although a complex and amorphous concept, is a term that warrants attention, especially in discussions on issues that touch on the impacts of climate change and variability. Based on the principles of RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Synthesis, we present a systematic review aimed at gaining insights into the conceptualization and methodological construct of previous studies regarding QOL and QOL-related indexes. We find that (i) QOL assessments vary in terms of conceptual foundations, dimensions, indicators, and units of analysis, (ii) social indicators are consistently used across assessments, (iii) most assessments consider indicators that pertain to the livability of the environment, and (iv) QOL can be based on objective indicators and/or subjective well-being, and on a composite index or unaggregated dimensions and indicators. However, we also find that QOL assessments remain poorly connected with climate-related issues, an important research gap. Our proposed "QOL-Climate" assessment framework, designed to capture the social-ecological impacts of climate change and variability, can potentially help fill this gap.