CLIMATE CHANGE AND FUTURE LAND USE IN THE UNITED STATES: AN ECONOMIC APPROACH

David Haim, Ralph J. Alig, Andrew J. Plantinga () and Brent Sohngen
Additional contact information
David Haim: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Oregon State University, USA
Ralph J. Alig: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, USA
Andrew J. Plantinga: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Oregon State University, USA

Climate Change Economics (CCE), 2011, vol. 02, issue 01, 27-51

Abstract: An econometric land-use model is used to project regional and national land-use changes in the United States under two IPCC emissions scenarios. The key driver of land-use change in the model is county-level measures of net returns to five major land uses. The net returns are modified for the IPCC scenarios according to assumed trends in population and income and projections from integrated assessment models of agricultural prices and agricultural and forestry yields. For both scenarios, we project large increases in urban land by the middle of the century, while the largest declines are in cropland area. Significant differences among regions in the projected patterns of land-use change are evident, including an expansion of forests in the Mountain and Plains regions with declines elsewhere. Comparisons to projections with no climate change effects on prices and yields reveal relatively small differences. Thus, our findings suggest that future land-use patterns in the U.S. will be shaped largely by urbanization, with climate change having a relatively small influence.

Keywords: Econometric models; land-use; climate change; regional analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010007811000218
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:ccexxx:v:02:y:2011:i:01:n:s2010007811000218

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S2010007811000218

Access Statistics for this article

Climate Change Economics (CCE) is currently edited by Robert Mendelsohn

More articles in Climate Change Economics (CCE) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().