Land Use Change, Spillovers, and Transitions: Global Trends, Prospects, and Emerging Drivers
Abstract
In this review, we first compile data on global trends and rates of major land use changes over the recent decades, and summarize the main insights revealed by these data. We then review recent research and quantitative estimates on key land use spillover processes, i.e., leakage, indirect land use change, rebound effect and land sparing, and agglomeration economies. We then turn to the prospective, by highlighting a few recent processes that may have an increasingly important influence on land use dynamics, and synthesizing recent quantitative projections of global land use dynamics until 2050, discussing business as usual (BAU) trends as well as more transformative scenarios. Extracting high-level lessons from previous research on land use transitions, we bring these different lines of evidence together to synthesize general conclusions about global land use dynamics and how to enhance sustainability through land use.
Related
- Climate change and internal migration nexus in Ethiopia a narrative review of drivers, patterns, and policy responses from 2000 to 2025
- Integrative analysis of climate change drivers using ISM DEMATEL approach for structural decision making
- Frequency‐Domain Airborne Electromagnetic Imaging of Permafrost Reveals Heterogeneity and Drivers of Permafrost Change in the Discontinuous Permafrost Zone of Northwestern Canada
- Decomposing drivers of global temperature change after net zero
- Climate Change Experienced by Life on Earth—Drivers and Mechanisms of Future Trends in Microclimates
BibTeX
@misc{meyfroidt2026land,
title = {{Land Use Change, Spillovers, and Transitions: Global Trends, Prospects, and Emerging Drivers}},
author = {Patrick Meyfroidt and Cecile Renier and Erasmus Klaus Helge Justus zu Ermgassen},
howpublished = {EarthArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31223/x53z4h},
url = {https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15443/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Land Use Change, Spillovers, and Transitions: Global Trends, Prospects, and Emerging Drivers
AU - Patrick Meyfroidt
AU - Cecile Renier
AU - Erasmus Klaus Helge Justus zu Ermgassen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/10
PB - EarthArXiv
DO - 10.31223/x53z4h
UR - https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15443/
AB - In this review, we first compile data on global trends and rates of major land use changes over the recent decades, and summarize the main insights revealed by these data. We then review recent research and quantitative estimates on key land use spillover processes, i.e., leakage, indirect land use change, rebound effect and land sparing, and agglomeration economies. We then turn to the prospective, by highlighting a few recent processes that may have an increasingly important influence on land use dynamics, and synthesizing recent quantitative projections of global land use dynamics until 2050, discussing business as usual (BAU) trends as well as more transformative scenarios. Extracting high-level lessons from previous research on land use transitions, we bring these different lines of evidence together to synthesize general conclusions about global land use dynamics and how to enhance sustainability through land use.
ER -