Curran and Co-Authors Redefine “Abandoned” Agricultural Land in New Publication
Posted: 9/2/2022 (CSDE in the News and CSDE Research)
CSDE Director Sara Curran, along with a number of co-authors, recently penned a perspective article in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Global mapping efforts to date have relied on vague and oversimplified definitions of “abandoned” agricultural land which results in overestimates of the land area that is likely to support persistent increases in forest cover and associated carbon sequestration. The authors propose a new conceptualization of abandoned agricultural land that incorporates changes in landholding status over time into determining whether land should be considered as abandoned.