Underutilized or unprotected? New methods for analyzing diverging perspectives on the large-scale conversion of tropical grassland eco-systems

The project aims at developing a new methodology for an integrated economic, environmental, and social assessment of land use options for African savanna regions. It is motivated by the fact that future land use options for the grassland regions worldwide, and particularly for the African Guinea savanna zone, are subject to unresolved scientific controversies: Economic research has identified this region as underutilized and having a large potential for increasing global biomass supply, while environmental research indicates that such a large-scale land use change may have far-reaching negative environmental consequences with regard to soil fertility, plant and animal biodiversity, hydrology,and carbon sequestration.These controversies remain unresolved because there are substantial knowledge gaps regarding the fundamental aspects of the biophysical dynamics in tropical grassland ecosystems, which are characterized by a complex interaction of climate, grassland vegetation and grazing animals. At the same time, there are major knowledge gaps regarding the governance of land use in the African Savanna region, which is subject to a complex interaction of customary and modern land tenure systems. The expansion of crop farming by smallholders has resulted in crop-livestock conflicts and outbursts of violence. Furthermore, one can observe an increasing number of large-scale land acquisitions in savanna regions, often associated with negative social and environmental consequences.

An important tool for analyzing land use change in savanna ecosystems are coupled biophysical and socio economic models.The University of Hohenheim has special expertise in this area. The proposed project will build upon current research activities such as the coupling of the land use change impact assessment model LUCIA with the agent-based socio economic model MPMAS, both of which have been developed in Hohenheim. To analyze potential impacts of land use change in savanna ecosystems, a livestock model will be developed and linked with the LUCIA model, which will capture the biophysical dimensions of plant-animal interactions and which is suitable to assess different grassland use options. The MPMAS model will be expanded to capture the specific features of land use decisions in savanna regions, which depend on the prevailing governance conditions and involve collective decision-making as well as the interaction of competing land users, including large-scale investors.The coupling of the two expanded models will make it possible to analyze feedback loops between changes in biophysical and socio economic parameters and to simulate different scenarios of change in savanna ecosystems, such as degradation, intensification, and conversion.The modeling system will also be used to identify governance instruments and processes that will promote more sustainable land use options.