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Impacts of Urbanization on Ecosystem Goods and Services in the U.S. Corn Belt

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Abstract

In this study, three cities located in the U.S. Corn Belt are evaluated for impacts of past (1992–2001) and projected (2001–2030) urban expansion on ecosystem goods and services, with a specific focus on changes in energy balance, hydrology, and productivity. Scenarios for high-, medium- and low-density urban areas are simulated using a dynamic agro-ecosystem model (Agro-IBIS), by incorporating new parameterizations for impervious surfaces and turf grass. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 500-m albedo data and remote sensing-derived 30-m resolution maps from the U.S. National Land Cover Database are used as model input to simulate biogeochemical, thermodynamic, and hydrological cycles for a range of land-cover types in each region. The results show that the expanding urban areas have a significant impact on each city’s capacity to regulate climate and flooding. High-density urban areas, for instance, have soil surface temperatures up to 6°C higher than soils within natural and managed ecosystems. Expansion of turf grass in residential areas could require an additional 8–105 million m3 of water use annually, which increases runoff by 15–48% and reduces the capacity to respond/adapt to flooding. Finally, the analysis shows that net primary productivity (NPP) decreases as expected due to the removal of cropland, forests, and grasslands in favor of development, but increased urban turf grass provides an annual offset of 40–210 g C m−2. Urban expansion through 2030 is estimated to lower total annual crop production by 8.1, 8.6, and 16.7% for the Madison, Peoria, and Indianapolis regions, respectively. Given current projections for city growth to exceed 2–3% per year in the north-central U.S., urban expansion across a nine-state region in the Corn Belt could potentially take an additional 210,000–310,000 ha of farmland out of production annually at a time when demand for food, fuel, and fiber is increasing. Because conversion of cropland to urban uses is nearly always unidirectional, any changes to ecosystem goods and services due to urbanization are likely to be permanent and irreversible.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Ankur Desai and Pete Nowak for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. This study was made possible by the Roy F. Weston Fellowship in Sustainability Studies, and the University of Wisconsin’s graduate studies program. CJK was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science through the Midwestern Regional Center for the National Institute for Climatic Change Research at Michigan Technological University, under Award Number DE-FC02-06ER64158.

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  1. Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1710 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin, 53726, USA

    Annemarie Schneider, Kelly E. Logan & Christopher J. Kucharik

  2. Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1575 Linden Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53726, USA

    Christopher J. Kucharik

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  1. Annemarie Schneider
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Correspondence to Annemarie Schneider.

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Schneider, A., Logan, K.E. & Kucharik, C.J. Impacts of Urbanization on Ecosystem Goods and Services in the U.S. Corn Belt. Ecosystems 15, 519–541 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-012-9519-1

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