The land-use projections and resulting emissions in the IPCC SRES scenarios as simulated by the IMAGE 2.2 model

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) developed a new series of emission scenarios (SRES). Six global models were used to develop SRES but most focused primarily on energy and industry related emissions. Land-use emissions were only covered by three models, where IMAGE included the most detailed, spatially explicit description of global land-use and land-cover dynamics. To complement their calculations the other models used land-use emission from AIM and IMAGE, leading to inconsistent estimates. Representation of the land-use emissions in SRES is therefore poor. This paper presents details on the IMAGE 2.1 land-use results to complement the SRES report. The IMAGE SRES scenarios are based on the original IPCC SRES assumptions and narratives using the latest version of IMAGE (IMAGE 2.2). IMAGE provides comprehensive emission estimates because not only emissions are addressed but also the resulting atmospheric concentrations, c1imate change and impacts. Additionally, in SRES the scenario assumptions were only presented and quantified for 4 "macro-regions". The IMAGE 2.2 SRES implementation has been extended towards 17 regions. We focus on land-use aspects and show that land-related emissions not only depend on population projections but also on the temporal and spatial dynamics of different land-related sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. We also illustrate the importance of systemic feed backs and interactions in the c1imate system that influence land-use emissions, such as deforestation and forest regrowth, soil respiration and CO2-fertilisation. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.