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Biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation require understanding of the potential trade-offs from possible future cropland expansion. Here we apply an interdisciplinary coupled modelling approach to identify areas under the globally highest expansion pressure of 1% to 30% future cropland expansion by 2030. On the basis of recent projections, we analyse the potential impacts on agricultural markets, biodiversity and CO2 land-use emissions of a 3.6% global cropland expansion scenario by 2030. We assess how global conservation policies could shift expansion pressure and alter the ensuing impacts. Our results confirm that the areas under pressure are located mainly in the tropics. A cropland expansion of 3.6% increases global agricultural production by 2%. The associated land-use change generates 17.1 Gt CO2 emissions and leads to a further decline in biodiversity intactness of 26% in the expanded areas. Conservation policies prohibiting the expansion into forests, wetlands and existing protected areas could substantially reduce emissions from land-use change, maintaining global agricultural productivity, but might have contrary effects on biodiversity. Strategic land-use planning could help reconcile agricultural production with environmental protection. The map of areas under expansion pressure presented here could contribute to improving the spatial planning of conservation measures.

Water provision and distribution are subject to conflicts between users worldwide, with agriculture as a major driver of discords. Water sensitive ecosystems and their services are often impaired by man-made water shortage. Nevertheless, they are not sufficiently included in sustainability or risk assessments and neglected when it comes to distribution of available water resources. The herein presented contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) and Life on Land (SDG 15) is the Ecological Sustainability Assessment of Water distribution (ESAW-tool). The ESAW-tool introduces a watershed sustainability assessment that evaluates the sustainability of the water supply-demand ratio on basin level, where domestic water use and the water requirements of ecosystems are considered as most important water users. An ecological risk assessment estimates potential impacts of agricultural depletion of renewable water resources on (ground)water-dependent ecosystems. The ESAW-tool works in standard GIS applications and is applicable in basins worldwide with a set of broadly available input data. The ESAW-tool is tested in the Danube river basin through combination of high-resolution hydro-agroecological model data (hydrological land surface process model PROMET and groundwater model OpenGeoSys) and further freely available data (water use, biodiversity and wetlands maps). Based on the results, measures for more sustainable water management can be deduced, such as increase of rainfed agriculture near vulnerable ecosystems or change of certain crops. The tool can support decision making of authorities from local to national level as well as private enterprises who want to improve the sustainability of their supply chains.

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Since 2020, the global COVID-19 crisis has been exposing numerous shortcomings in society and the global economy. In Germany, for example, archaic work structures prevail in parts of the food industry; other industry sectors blame COVID-19 for their long standing crises, thereby deliberately diverting attention from existing structural deficits and missed opportunities. Now is the time to examine and expose (mis)developments in order to understand the current global situation. A collective desire for attuned development goals and social (value) orientation has become evident. Quality of life is challenging monetary wealth as the sole indicator of prosperity and individual satisfaction. Today, people accept change, if it secures health, promotes new working environments, and achieves climate goals. Consequently, the “old” growth paradigm, based on maximizing individual benefit, is ready to be replaced by a new paradigm that maximizes societal benefit. Solidary action paves the way towards sustainability. Not to learn form a crisis is not to understand the crisis! Corona offers us an opportunity to rethink and reset. Can we utilize the pandemic experiences to increase dynamics in realizing the 17 UN-Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or ensure that we achieve them at all? We, a group of 26 experts from society, science, and politics discussed this issue in a three-day workshop in October 2021. We consider the following six jointly developed demands essential steps to leave behind a world worth living in.

Climate change affects global agricultural production and threatens food security. Faster phenological development of crops due to climate warming is one of the main drivers for potential future yield reductions. To counter the effect of faster maturity, adapted varieties would require more heat units to regain the previous growing period length. In this study, we investigate the effects of variety adaptation on global caloric production under four different future climate change scenarios for maize, rice, soybean, and wheat. Thereby, we empirically identify areas that could require new varieties and areas where variety adaptation could be achieved by shifting existing varieties into new regions. The study uses an ensemble of seven global gridded crop models and five CMIP6 climate models. We found that 39% (SSP5‐8.5) of global cropland could require new crop varieties to avoid yield loss from climate change by the end of the century. At low levels of warming (SSP1‐2.6), 85% of currently cultivated land can draw from existing varieties to shift within an agro‐ecological zone for adaptation. The assumptions on available varieties for adaptation have major impacts on the effectiveness of variety adaptation, which could more than half in SSP5‐8.5. The results highlight that region‐specific breeding efforts are required to allow for a successful adaptation to climate change.

With rising demand for biomass, cropland expansion and intensification represent the main strategies to boost agricultural production, but are also major drivers of biodiversity decline. We investigate the consequences of attaining equal global production gains by 2030, either by cropland expansion or intensification, and analyse their impacts on agricultural markets and biodiversity. We find that both scenarios lead to lower crop prices across the world, even in regions where production decreases. Cropland expansion mostly affects biodiversity hotspots in Central and South America, while cropland intensification threatens biodiversity especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, India and China. Our results suggest that production gains will occur at the costs of biodiversity predominantly in developing tropical regions, while Europe and North America benefit from lower world market prices without putting their own biodiversity at risk. By identifying hotspots of potential future conflicts, we demonstrate where conservation prioritization is needed to balance agricultural production with conservation goals.

Monitoring seasonal snow cover properties is critical for properly managing natural hazards such as snow avalanches or snowmelt floods. However, measurements often cannot be conducted in difficult terrain or lack the high temporal resolution needed to account for rapid changes in the snowpack, e.g., liquid water content (LWC). To monitor essential snowpack properties, we installed an upward looking ground-penetrating radar (upGPR) and a low-cost GPS system below the snow cover and observed in parallel its evolution during two winter seasons. Applying external snow height (HS) information, both systems provided consistent LWC estimates in snow, based on independent approaches, namely measurements of travel time and attenuation of electromagnetic waves. By combining upGPR and GPS, we now obtain a self-contained approach instead of having to rely on external information such as HS. This allows for the first time determining LWC, HS, and snow water equivalent (SWE) nondestructively and continuously potentially also in avalanche-prone slopes.

SA’s new Earth Observation Science Strategy aims to cover all areas of science to which Earth observation missions can contribute. It challenges ESA and the scientific community to advance knowledge and technology in order to respond to the increasing needs associated with risks and opportunities in our changing global environment. The strategy (SP-1329/1) provides key elements and scientific direction for the future progress of ESA’s Living Planet Programme. The context and specific scientific challenges to increase knowledge and capabilities in the five Earth science disciplines – atmosphere, cryosphere, land surface, ocean and solid Earth – are identified in the complementary volume (SP-1329/2).

ESA’s new Earth Observation Science Strategy aims to cover all areas of science to which Earth observation missions can contribute. It challenges ESA and the scientific community to advance knowledge and technology in order to respond to the increasing needs associated with risks and opportunities in our changing global environment. The strategy (SP-1329/1) provides key elements and scientific direction for the future progress of ESA’s Living Planet Programme. The context and specific scientific challenges to increase knowledge and capabilities in the five Earth science disciplines – atmosphere, cryosphere, land surface, ocean and solid Earth – are identified in the complementary volume (SP-1329/2).