Open AccessWoody-biomass projections and drivers of change in sub-Saharan Africa
Author(s) -
C. A. Ross,
Niall P. Hanan,
Lara Prihodko,
Julius Anchang,
Wenjie Ji,
Qiuyan Yu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
nature climate change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.749
H-Index - 189
eISSN - 1758-6798
pISSN - 1758-678X
DOI - 10.1038/s41558-021-01034-5
Subject(s) - climate change , environmental science , ecosystem , disturbance (geology) , biomass (ecology) , fire regime , anthropocene , geography , vegetation (pathology) , global change , ecology , population , population growth , land use, land use change and forestry , agroforestry , land use , geology , medicine , paleontology , demography , pathology , sociology , biology
Africa's ecosystems have an important role in global carbon dynamics, yet consensus is lacking regarding the amount of carbon stored in woody vegetation and the potential impacts to carbon storage in response to changes in climate, land use, and other Anthropocene risks. Here, we explore the socio-environmental conditions that shaped the contemporary distribution of woody vegetation across sub-Saharan Africa and evaluate ecosystem response to multiple scenarios of climate change, anthropogenic pressures, and fire disturbance. Our projections suggest climate change will have a small but negative effect on above ground woody biomass at the continental scale, and the compounding effects of population growth, increasing human pressures, and socio-climatic driven changes in fire behavior further exacerbate climate-driven trends. Relatively modest continental-scale trends obscure much larger regional perturbations, with climatic and anthropogenic factors leading to increased carbon storage potential in East Africa, offset by large deficits in West, Central, and Southern Africa.