Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-4 (section)

== 4.7 Impacts of climate-related land degradation on poverty and livelihoods ==

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Unravelling the impacts of climate-related land degradation on poverty and livelihoods is highly challenging. This complexity is due to the interplay of multiple social, political, cultural and economic factors, such as markets, technology, inequality, population growth, (Barbier and Hochard 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r841|841]]</sup> ) each of which interact and shape the ways in which social-ecological systems respond (Morton 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r842|842]]</sup> ). We find ''limited evidence'' attributing the impacts of climate-related land degradation to poverty and livelihoods, with climate often not distinguished from any other driver of land degradation. Climate is nevertheless frequently noted as a risk multiplier for both land degradation and poverty ( ''high agreement, robust evidence'' ) and is one of many stressors people live with, respond to and adapt to in their daily lives (Reid and Vogel 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r843|843]]</sup> ). Climate change is considered to exacerbate land degradation and potentially accelerate it due to heat stress, drought, changes to evapotranspiration rates and biodiversity, as well as a result of changes to environmental conditions that allow new pests and diseases to thrive (Reed and Stringer 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r844|844]]</sup> ). In general terms, the climate (and climate change) can increase human and ecological communities’ sensitivity to land degradation. Land degradation then leaves livelihoods more sensitive to the impacts of climate change and extreme climatic events ( ''high agreement, robust evidence'' ). If human and ecological communities exposed to climate change and land degradation are sensitive and cannot adapt, they can be considered vulnerable to it; if they are sensitive and can adapt, they can be considered resilient (Reed and Stringer 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r845|845]]</sup> ). The impacts of land degradation will vary under a changing climate, both spatially and temporally, leading some communities and ecosystems to be more vulnerable or more resilient than others under different scenarios. Even within communities, groups such as women and youth are often more vulnerable than others.

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=== 4.7.1 Relationships between land degradation, climate change and poverty ===

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This section sets out the relationships between land degradation and poverty, and climate change and poverty, leading to inferences about the three-way links between them. Poverty is multidimensional and includes a lack of access to the whole range of capital assets that can be used to pursue a livelihood. Livelihoods constitute the capabilities, assets and activities that are necessary to make a living (Chambers and Conway 1992 <sup>[[#fn:r846|846]]</sup> ; Olsson et al. 2014b <sup>[[#fn:r847|847]]</sup> ).

The literature shows ''high agreement'' in terms of speculation that there are potential links between land degradation and poverty. However, studies have not provided robust quantitative assessments of the extent and incidence of poverty within populations affected by land degradation (Barbier and Hochard 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r848|848]]</sup> ). Some researchers, for example, Nachtergaele et al. (2011) <sup>[[#fn:r849|849]]</sup> estimate that 1.5 billion people were dependent upon degraded land to support their livelihoods in 2007, while &gt;42% of the world’s poor population inhabit degraded areas. However, there is overall ''low confidence'' in the evidence base, a lack of studies that look beyond the past and present, and the literature calls for more in-depth research to be undertaken on these issues (Gerber et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r850|850]]</sup> ). Recent work by Barbier and Hochard (2018) <sup>[[#fn:r851|851]]</sup> points to biophysical constraints such as poor soils and limited rainfall, which interact to limit land productivity, suggesting that those farming in climatically less-favourable agricultural areas are challenged by poverty. Studies such as those by Coomes et al. (2011) <sup>[[#fn:r852|852]]</sup> , focusing on an area in the Amazon, highlight the importance of the initial conditions of land holding in the dominant (shifting) cultivation system in terms of long-term effects on household poverty and future forest cover, showing that initial land tenure and socio-economic aspects can make some areas less favourable too.

Much of the qualitative literature is focused on understanding the livelihood and poverty impacts of degradation through a focus on subsistence agriculture, where farms are small, under traditional or informal tenure and where exposure to environmental (including climate) risks is high (Morton 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r853|853]]</sup> ). In these situations, poorer people lack access to assets (financial, social, human, natural and physical) and in the absence of appropriate institutional supports and social protection, this leaves them sensitive and unable to adapt, so a vicious cycle of poverty and degradation can ensue. To further illustrate the complexity, livelihood assessments often focus on a single snapshot in time. Livelihoods are dynamic and people alter their livelihood activities and strategies depending on the internal and external stressors to which they are responding (O’Brien et al. 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r854|854]]</sup> ). When certain livelihood activities and strategies are no longer tenable as a result of land degradation (and may push people into poverty), land degradation can have further effects on issues such as migration (Lee 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r855|855]]</sup> ), as people adapt by moving (Section 4.7.3); and may result in conflict (Section 4.7.3), as different groups within society compete for scarce resources, sometimes through non-peaceful actions. Both migration and conflict can lead to land-use changes elsewhere that further fuel climate change through increased emissions.

Similar challenges as for understanding land degradation–poverty linkages are experienced in unravelling the relationship between climate change and poverty. A particular issue in examining climate change–poverty links relates to the common use of aggregate economic statistics like GDP, as the assets and income of the poor constitute a minor proportion of national wealth (Hallegatte et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r856|856]]</sup> ). Aggregate quantitative measures also fail to capture the distributions of costs and benefits from climate change. Furthermore, people fall into and out of poverty, with climate change being one of many factors affecting these dynamics, through its impacts on livelihoods. Much of the literature on climate change and poverty tends to look backward rather than forward (Skoufias et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r857|857]]</sup> ), providing a snapshot of current or past relationships (for example, Dell et al. (2009) <sup>[[#fn:r858|858]]</sup> who examine the relationship between temperature and income (GDP) using cross-sectional data from countries in the Americas). Yet, simulations of future climate change impacts on income or poverty are largely lacking.

Noting the ''limited evidence'' that exists that explicitly focuses on the relationship between land degradation, climate change and poverty, Barbier and Hochard (2018b) <sup>[[#fn:r859|859]]</sup> suggest that those people living in less-favoured agricultural areas face a poverty–environment trap that can result in increased land degradation under climate change conditions. The emergent relationships between land degradation, climate change and poverty are shown in Figure 4.6 (see also Figure 6.1).

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'''Figure 4.6'''

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'''Schematic representation of links between climate change, land management and socio-economic conditions.'''
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[[File:5b4d2ffdf107f778d462e09fd4632854 Figure-4.6-1024x408.jpg]]

Schematic representation of links between climate change, land management and socio-economic conditions.

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The poor have access to few productive assets – so land, and the natural resource base more widely, plays a key role in supporting the livelihoods of the poor. It is, however, hard to make generalisations about how important income derived from the natural resource base is for rural livelihoods in the developing world (Angelsen et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r860|860]]</sup> ). Studies focusing on forest resources have shown that approximately one quarter of the total rural household income in developing countries stems from forests, with forest-based income shares being tentatively higher for low-income households (Vedeld et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r861|861]]</sup> ; Angelsen et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r862|862]]</sup> ). Different groups use land in different ways within their overall livelihood portfolios and are, therefore, at different levels of exposure and sensitivity to climate shocks and stresses. The literature nevertheless displays high evidence and high agreement that those populations whose livelihoods are more sensitive to climate change and land degradation are often more dependent on environmental assets, and these people are often the poorest members of society. There is further ''high evidence'' and ''high agreement'' that both climate change and land degradation can affect livelihoods and poverty through their threat multiplier effect. Research in Bellona, in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (Reenberg et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r863|863]]</sup> ) examined event-driven impacts on livelihoods, taking into account weather events as one of many drivers of land degradation and links to broader land use and land cover changes that have taken place. Geographical locations experiencing land degradation are often the same locations that are directly affected by poverty, and also by extreme events linked to climate change and variability.

Much of the assessment presented above has considered place-based analyses examining the relationships between poverty, land degradation and climate change in the locations in which these outcomes have occurred. Altieri and Nicholls (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r864|864]]</sup> note that, due to the globalised nature of markets and consumption systems, the impacts of changes in crop yields linked to climate-related land degradation (manifest as lower yields) will be far reaching, beyond the sites and livelihoods experiencing degradation. Despite these teleconnections, farmers living in poverty in developing countries will be especially vulnerable due to their exposure, dependence on the environment for income and limited options to engage in other ways to make a living (Rosenzweig and Hillel 1998 <sup>[[#fn:r865|865]]</sup> ). In identifying ways in which these interlinkages can be addressed, Scherr (2000) <sup>[[#fn:r866|866]]</sup> observes that key actions that can jointly address poverty and environmental improvement often seek to increase access to natural resources, enhance the productivity of the natural resource assets of the poor, and engage stakeholders in addressing public natural resource management issues. In this regard, it is increasingly recognised that those suffering from, and being vulnerable to, land degradation and

poverty need to have a voice and play a role in the development of solutions, especially where the natural resources and livelihood activities they depend on are further threatened by climate change.

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=== 4.7.2 Impacts of climate-related land degradation on food security ===

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How and where we grow food, compared to where and when we need to consume it, is at the crux of issues surrounding land degradation, climate change and food security, especially because more than 75% of the global land surface (excluding Antarctica) faces rain-fed crop production constraints (Fischer et al. 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r867|867]]</sup> ), see also Chapter 5. Taken separately, knowledge on land degradation processes and human-induced climate change has attained a great level of maturity. However, their combined effects on food security, notably food supply, remain underappreciated (Webb et al. 2017b <sup>[[#fn:r868|868]]</sup> ), and quantitative information is lacking. Just a few studies have shown how the interactive effects of the aforementioned challenging, interrelated phenomena can impact on crop productivity and hence food security and quality (Karami et al. 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r869|869]]</sup> ; Allen et al. 2001 <sup>[[#fn:r870|870]]</sup> ; Högy and Fangmeier 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r871|871]]</sup> ) ( ''low evidence'' ). Along with socio-economic drivers, climate change accelerates land degradation due to its influence on land-use systems (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 <sup>[[#fn:r872|872]]</sup> ; UNCCD 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r873|873]]</sup> ), potentially leading to a decline in agri-food system productivity, particularly on the supply side. Increases in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns are expected to have impacts on soil quality, including nutrient availability and assimilation (St.Clair and Lynch 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r874|874]]</sup> ). Those climate-related changes are expected to have net negative impacts on agricultural productivity, particularly in tropical regions, though the magnitude of impacts depends on the models used. Anticipated supply-side issues linked to land and climate relate to biocapacity factors (including e.g., whether there is enough water to support agriculture); production factors (e.g., chemical pollution of soil and water resources or lack of soil nutrients) and distribution issues (e.g., decreased availability of and/or accessibility to the necessary diversity of quality food where and when it is needed) (Stringer et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r875|875]]</sup> ). Climate-sensitive transport infrastructure is also problematic for food security (Islam et al. 2017), and can lead to increased food waste, while poor siting of roads and transport links can lead to soil erosion and forest loss (Xiao et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r877|877]]</sup> ), further feeding back into climate change.

Over the past decades, crop models have been useful tools for assessing and understanding climate change impacts on crop productivity and food security (White et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r878|878]]</sup> ; Rosenzweig et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r879|879]]</sup> ). Yet, the interactive effects of soil parameters and climate change on crop yields and food security remain limited, with ''low evidence'' of how they play out in different economic and climate settings (e.g., Sundström et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r880|880]]</sup> ). Similarly, there have been few meta-analyses focusing on the adaptive capacity of land-use practices such as conservation agriculture in light of climate stress (see e.g., Steward et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r881|881]]</sup> ), as well as ''low evidence'' quantifying the role of wild foods and forests (and, by extension, forest degradation) in both the global food basket and in supporting household-scale food security (Bharucha and Pretty 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r882|882]]</sup> ; Hickey et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r883|883]]</sup> ).

To be sustainable, any initiative aimed at addressing food security – encompassing supply, diversity and quality – must take into consideration the interactive effects between climate and land degradation in a context of other socio-economic stressors. Such socio-economic factors are especially important if we look at demand-side issues too, which include lack of purchasing power, large-scale speculation on global food markets, leading to exponential price rises (Tadesse et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r884|884]]</sup> ), competition in appropriation of supplies and changes to per capita food consumption (Stringer et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r885|885]]</sup> ) (Chapter 5). Lack of food security, combined with lack of livelihood options, is often an important manifestation of vulnerability, and can act as a key trigger for people to migrate. In this way, migration becomes an adaptation strategy.

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=== 4.7.3 Impacts of climate-related land degradation on migration and conflict ===

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Land degradation may trigger competition for scarce natural resources, potentially leading to migration and/or conflict, though, even with ''medium evidence,'' there is ''low agreement'' in the literature. Linkages between land degradation and migration occur within a larger context of multi-scale interaction of environmental and non-environmental drivers and processes, including resettlement projects, searches for education and/or income, land shortages, political turmoil, and family-related reasons (McLeman 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r886|886]]</sup> ; Hermans and Ide 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r887|887]]</sup> ). The complex contribution of climate to migration and conflict hampers retrieving any level of confidence on climate-migration and climate-conflict linkages, therefore constituting a major knowledge gap (Cramer et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r888|888]]</sup> ; Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r889|889]]</sup> ).

There is ''low evidence'' on the causal linkages between climate change, land degradation processes (other than desertification) and migration. Existing studies on land degradation and migration – particularly in drylands – largely focus on the effect of rainfall variability and drought, and show how migration serves as adaptation strategy (Piguet et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r890|890]]</sup> ; McLeman 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r891|891]]</sup> ; Chapter 3). For example, in the Ethiopian highlands, severe topsoil erosion and forest degradation is a major environmental stressor which is amplified by recurring droughts, with migration being an important household adaptation strategy (Morrissey 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r892|892]]</sup> ). In the humid tropics, land degradation, mainly as a consequence of deforestation, has been a reported reason for people leaving their homes during the Amazonian colonisation (Hecht 1983 <sup>[[#fn:r894|894]]</sup> ) but was also observed more recently, for example in Guatemala, where soil degradation was one of the most frequently cited migration pushes (López-Carr 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r895|895]]</sup> ) and Kenya, where households respond to low soil quality by sending temporary migrants for additional income generation (Gray 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r896|896]]</sup> ). In contrast, in the Andean highlands and the Pacific coastal plain, migration increased with land quality, probably because revenues from additional agricultural production was invested in costly forms of migration (Gray and Bilsborrow 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r897|897]]</sup> ). These mixed results illustrate the complex, non-linear relationship of land degradation–migration linkages and suggest that explaining land degradationand migration linkages requires considering a broad range of socio-ecological conditions (McLeman 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r898|898]]</sup> ).

In addition to people moving away from an area due to ‘lost’ livelihood activities, climate-related land degradation can also reduce the availability of livelihood safety nets – environmental assets that people use during times of shocks or stress. For example, Barbier (2000) <sup>[[#fn:r899|899]]</sup> notes that wetlands in north-east Nigeria around Hadejia–Jama’are floodplain provide dry season pastures for seminomadic herders, agricultural surpluses for Kano and Borno states, groundwater recharge of the Chad formation aquifer and ‘insurance’ resources in times of drought. The floodplain also supports many migratory bird species. As climate change and land degradation combine, delivery of these multiple services can be undermined, particularly as droughts become more widespread, reducing the utility of this wetland environment as a safety net for people and wildlife alike.

Early studies conducted in Africa hint at a significant causal link between land degradation and violent conflict (Homer-Dixon et al. 1993 <sup>[[#fn:r900|900]]</sup> ). For example, Percival and Homer-Dixon (1995) <sup>[[#fn:r901|901]]</sup> identified land degradation as one of the drivers of the crisis in Rwanda in the early 1990s, which allowed radical forces to stoke ethnic rivalries. With respect to the Darfur conflict, some scholars and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded that land degradation, together with other environmental stressors, constitute a major security threat for the Sudanese people (Byers and Dragojlovic 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r902|902]]</sup> ; Sachs 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r903|903]]</sup> ; UNEP 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r904|904]]</sup> ). Recent studies show low agreement, suggesting that climate change can increase the likelihood of civil violence if certain economic, political and social factors, including low development and weak governance mechanisms, are present (Scheffran et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r905|905]]</sup> ; Benjaminsen et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r906|906]]</sup> ). In contrast, Raleigh and Urdal (2007) <sup>[[#fn:r907|907]]</sup> found in a global study that land degradation is a weak predictor for armed conflict. As such, studies addressing possible linkages between climate change – a key driver of land degradation – and the risks of conflict have yielded contradictory results, and it remains largely unclear whether land degradation resulting from climate change leads to conflict or cooperation (Salehyan 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r908|908]]</sup> ; Solomon et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r909|909]]</sup> ).

Land degradation–conflict linkages can be bi-directional. Research suggests that households experiencing natural resource degradation often engage in migration for securing livelihoods (Kreamer 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r910|910]]</sup> ), which potentially triggers land degradation at the destination, leading to conflict there (Kassa et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r911|911]]</sup> ). While this indeed holds true for some cases, it may not for others, given the complexity of processes, contexts and drivers. Where conflict and violence do ensue, it is often as a result of a lack of appreciation for the cultural practices of others.

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