Sol Land Management

[Julian-Dumitrascu]

This is a team of the division Sol Resource Management.
1.1 Land cover
1.2 Land use
2. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
2.1 fifth assessment report (2014)
2.2 report on climate change and land (2019)
2.3 sixth assessment report (2022)
3. Our services

1. Land cover and use

Since at least 2020 we have collected data about land cover and land use.

1.1 Land cover in 2015

cover	area, million km2
trees	43.57
crops	19.36
barren soil	19.23
grass	18.22
shrubs	16.77
snow and glaciers	14.46
sparse vegetation	8.88
water bodies	3.77
herbaceous vegetation, aquatic or regularly flooded	1.89
artificial surfaces	0.55
mangroves	0.19

The tree cover seems to have dropped to 40.6m km2 (31% of the total land area) by 2020. Are we destroying 0.6 million km2 every year?
A lot of land has been degrading through intensive use. How do we help land and soil keep their qualities? I give some answers throughout this message, others at its end.

1.2 Land use

1.2.1 Forestry

I quote from the key findings of the Global Forest Resources Assessment published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2020.
"54% of the world’s forests is in only five countries: the Russian Federation (8.15m km2), Brazil (4.97m km2), Canada (3.47m km2), the United States of America (3.1m km2), and China (2.2m km2)."
They call forests tropical (45% of them), subtropical (11%), boreal, (27%), or temperate (16%).
"The world has lost 1.78m km2 of forest since 1990."
Since 1990, the forest area increased a bit in Asia. It decreased mainly in South America and Africa.
Some things that may have helped fell trees in the latter regions:
a. "Most of the forests in Europe have management plans; management plans exist for less than 25% of forests in Africa and less than 20% in South America. The area of forest under management plans is increasing in all regions; it has increased by 2.33m km2 since 2000, reaching 20.5m km2 in 2020."
b. "73% of the world’s forests is under public ownership, 2% is privately owned, and the ownership of the remainder is categorized as either “unknown” or “other” (the latter mainly comprising forests where ownership is disputed or in transition). Public ownership is predominant in all regions and most subregions. Of the regions, Oceania, North and Central America, and South America have the highest proportions of private forests."
This can mean that some governments have some of their most valuable employees in their ministries of the environment. In which ministries did those work who helped some grab land for agriculture?
"93% (37.5m km2) of the forest area worldwide is composed of naturally regenerating forests and 7% (2.9m km2) is planted."
"There is an estimated 7.26m km2 of forest in protected areas worldwide. Of the six major world regions, South America has the highest share of forests in protected areas, at 31%."
"The world still has at least 11.1m km2 of primary forest: forests composed of native species in which there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes have not been significantly disturbed. Combined, three countries – Brazil, Canada, and the Russian Federation – host 61% of the world’s primary forest."
"Forests face many disturbances that can adversely affect their health and vitality and reduce their ability to provide a full range of goods and ecosystem services. About 980k km2 of forest were affected by fire in 2015; this was mainly in the tropical domain, where fire burned about 4% of the total forest area in that year. More than two-thirds of the total forest area affected was in Africa and South America.
Insects, diseases and severe weather events damaged about 400k km2 of forests in 2015, mainly in the temperate and boreal domains."
"Public administrations hold management rights to 83% of the publicly owned forest area globally. Management by public administrations is particularly predominant in South America, where it accounts for 97% of management responsibility in publicly owned forests. The share of public administration management rights has decreased globally since 1990, with an increasing share of publicly owned forests managed by private businesses, entities and institutions, and by indigenous and tribal communities."
"The world’s total growing stock of trees decreased slightly, from 560 billion m3 in 1990 to 557 billion m3 in 2020, due to a net decrease in forest area. On the other hand, growing stock is increasing per unit area globally and in all regions; it rose from 132 m3 per ha in 1990 to 137 m3 per ha in 2020. Growing stock per unit area is highest in the tropical forests of South and Central America, and West and Central Africa. The world’s forests contain about 606 gigatonnes of living biomass (above and below ground) and 59 gigatonnes of dead wood. The total biomass has decreased slightly since 1990, but biomass per unit area has increased."
"Most forest carbon is found in the living biomass (44%) and soil organic matter (45%), with the remainder in dead wood and litter. The total carbon stock in forests decreased from 668 gigatonnes in 1990 to 662 gigatonnes in 2020; carbon density increased slightly over the same period, from 159 tonnes to 163 tonnes per ha."
"about 11.5m km2 of forest is managed primarily for the production of wood and non-wood forest products. In addition, 7.49m km2 is designated for multiple use, which often includes production. Worldwide, the area of forest designated primarily for production has been relatively stable since 1990, but the area of multiple-use forest has decreased by about 710k km2."
"4.24m km2 of forest is designated primarily for biodiversity conservation. In total, 1.11m km2 has been so designated since 1990, of which the largest part was allocated between 2000 and 2010."
"An estimated 3.98m km2 of forest is designated primarily for the protection of soil and water, an increase of 1.19m km2 since 1990. The rate of increase in the area of forest allocated for this purpose has grown over the entire period, but especially in the last ten years."
"An area of 1.86m km2 of forest is allocated for social services such as recreation, tourism, education research, and the conservation of cultural and spiritual sites."

1.2.2 Agriculture

1.2.2.1 Millions of km2 of agricultural land for crops and grazing in 2017: China 6.28, USA 4.07, Brazil 2.78, Russia 2.22, India 1.78, Canada 0.62
Millions of km2 of cropland: India 1.68, USA 1.54, China 1.22, Russia 1.22, Brazil 0.82, Canada 0.48
Millions of km2 used for: cereals 7.21, coarse grain 3.38, oilcrops 3.02, pulses 0.85, roots and tubers 0.62, vegetables 0.61, fruits 0.58
1.2.2.2 The number of square metres of agricultural land per person dropped 56% from 14,500 to 6,300 between 1961 and 2018.
Americans seem to have the most agricultural land per person: 1.17 hectares How are they going to manage it?
Africa 0.88, Europe 0.62, and Asia 0.37 Mongolia (35 hectares per person), Kazakhstan (12), and Ukraine (1) might play important roles in agriculture. Together with Russia (1.5)?
"Ukraine is one of the most fertile places on the planet, with 25-30 percent of the world’s black soil reserves." Who wants products from its 400,000 km2 of agricultural land?
1.2.2.3 Share of global habitable land needed for agriculture if everyone had the diet of: Mozambique 13.3%, Liberia 13.4%, Bangladesh 14.9%, Sri Lanka 16.2%, Togo 17.7%, Sierra Leone 18%, Malawi 18.1%, Indonesia 18.3%, Thailand and Iraq 20.9%
1.2.2.4 Agriculture produces 13.7 Gt of GHG per year.
We get 82% of calories from crops: 11m km2 To get 100%, we'd need at least 13.5m km2. We might have them. (We're using 51m km2 for agriculture.) We get 63% of proteins from crops. To get 100%, we'd need at least 17.5m km2. We might not have them. Can we increase the area of forests from 39m km2 to 72m km2?
1.2.2.5 In 2018 we produced 2,906 Mt of cereals, mainly in Asia: 1,418 Mt. Main countries: China 609, USA 440, India 322, Russia 110, Brazil 103, Indonesia 89, Argentina 71, Ukraine 69, France 62, Bangladesh 59, Canada 59
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of cereals per hectare were produced in: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 29.24, United Arab Emirates 26, Oman 18.62, Kuwait 10.32, Mauritius 9, New Zealand 9, New Caledonia 8.48, Belgium and Qatar 8.43, USA 8.18, Netherlands 7.92
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of potatoes per hectare were produced in: USA 50.79, New Zealand 50.74, Kuwait 48.74, Switzerland 44.72, Denmark 44, Germany 42.83, Netherlands 42.68, France 40.52, Belgium 40.36, Australia 39.8
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of dry beans per hectare were produced in: Mali 10, Montenegro 7.16, Tajikistan 7.11, Iraq 6.9, Barbados 5.71, Egypt 3.94, Sudan 3.49, Libya 3.36, South Sudan 3.15, Lebanon 3.08, Belarus 2.8
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of dry peas per hectare were produced in: Burundi 4.75, Lebanon 4.5, Denmark 4.33, Ireland 4.09, Switzerland 3.86, Belgium 3.82, Germany 3.6, New Zealand 3.52, Luxembourg 3.34, Sweden 3.29, Brazil 3.25
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of soybeans per hectare were produced in: Turkey 4.42, Italy 3.93, USA 3.38, Georgia 3.37, Brazil 3.28, Spain 3.19, Serbia 3.17, Canada 3.12, Croatia 3.09
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of tomatoes per hectare were produced in: Belgium 502, Netherlands 486, Finland 412, Denmark 392, Sweden 381, Ireland 371, Norway 356, Britain 345, Austria 293, Iceland 290, Germany 268
In 2020 the largest number of tonnes of lettuce per hectare were produced in: Puerto Rico 78, Jordan 50.6, Kuwait 47.66, Belgium 44.8, Bahrain 41.1, USA 40.88, Congo 39.62, Hungary 35.45, Denmark 35.32, Luxembourg 32, Germany 31.42
1.2.2.6 All the people in Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Iceland, and the United Arab Emirates could afford a healthy diet in 2020. 99.9% of the people in: Ireland, France, Slovenia, Finland, and Luxembourg. 42% of people could not.
The number of missing calories per person per day in: Turkey 1, Argentina 2, Tunisia 3, South Korea 4, Cuba 7, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela 9, Brazil 10, Azerbaijan, Brunei, and Egypt 12 Asia seems bountiful. Africans seem undernourished, but they have the highest fertility. Fertility grows with the amount of energy used. Who wants to discuss this?
Coefficient of variation (CV) of a person's energy intake: USA and Japan 0.17, Cyprus 0.18, China 0.19, 16 European countries and Canada 0.2 They use fewer calories in Australia: 0.21
A person seems to need fewer calories per day in Africa: Burundi 1,664, Angola 1,667, Niger and the DR of Congo 1,669, Tanzania 1,683, Mozambique 1,686 One seems to need the most calories in these countries: Qatar 2,057, United Arab Emirates 2,041, Luxembourg 1,975, Netherlands 1,971, Bahrain 1,964, Switzerland 1,957, Norway 1,954, Finland 1,953, USA 1,951, Denmark 1,949
Percentage of people undergoing at least moderate food insecurity in 2019: Switzerland 2, Kazakhstan 2.3, Austria 3, Luxembourg 3.1, Germany and Japan 3.4, Belgium 3.7, Britain 3.9, Norway 4.1, Czechia 4.2
Percentage of wasted children under 5 in 2020: Australia 0, USA 0.1, Chile and Germany 0.3, Peru and Belgium 0.4, Malawi, Georgia, Greece, and Portugal 0.6

2. IPCC reports

2.1 The IPCC suggested in their Fifth Assessment Report from 2014 that we should:

2.1.1 manage forests better

2.1.1.1 control fire and pest outbreaks, e.g. by replacing slash and burn agriculture with slash and char
2.1.1.2 protect peatland forests
2.1.1.3 plant trees e.g. on agricultural lands
2.1.1.4 extend rotation cycles, reduce logging waste, conserve soil, use wood more efficiently
2.1.1.5 natural or artificial regeneration, rehabilitation of degraded lands, long-term fallows
table 11.3: “Conservation of wood (products) through more efficient use or replacement with recycled materials and replacing wood from illegal logging or destructive harvest with wood from certified sustainable forestry can save GHG emissions.”
You can order with Sol Resource Management wood logged legally and sustainably, and products from recycled wood.
Using wood instead of non-renewable resources, e.g. “emission-intensive materials such as aluminium, steel, or concrete in buildings”, can reduce GHG emissions.

2.1.2 manage croplands better

2.1.2.1 increase variety of crops, improve crop rotation, use cover crops, perennial cropping
2.1.2.2 change the application rate and the type of fertilizers, as well as the time of fertilizations
2.1.2.3 till less intensely and retain residues
2.1.2.4 mid-season paddy drainage
2.1.2.5 rewet peatlands drained for agriculture

2.1.3. manage grazing land better

2.1.3.1 improve grass varieties / sward composition, e.g. deep rooting grasses, manage nutrients better; appropriate stocking densities, carrying capacity, fodder banks, and improved grazing management;
2.1.3.2 diversify fodder
2.1.3.3 manage animal waste better
2.1.3.4 prevent fires
2.1.3.5 revegetate land
2.1.3.6 reduce nitrogen inputs
2.1.3.7 soil carbon restoration on peatlands and avoided net soil carbon emissions using improved land management
2.1.3.8 land reclamation (afforestation, soil fertility management, water conservation, soil nutrients enhancement, improved fallow)
2.1.3.9 improve feed and dietary additives to reduce emissions from enteric fermentation
“Mixed production systems such as double-cropping systems and mixed crop-livestock systems can increase land productivity and efficiency in the use of water and other resources as well as serve carbon sequestration objectives. Perennial grasses (e.g. bamboo) can in the same way as woody plants be cultivated in shelter belts and riparian zones / buffer strips to provide environmental services and support carbon sequestration and biomass production.”
“Reduced losses in the food supply chain and in final consumption reduce energy use and GHG emissions from agriculture, transport, storage, and distribution, and reduce land demand.”
You can use services of Sol Food so that we avoid overproduction and you avoid throwing it away.
Preferring food items with lower GHG emissions per unit of product “can reduce GHG emissions. Such demand changes can reduce energy inputs in the supply chain and reduce land demand.”

2.2 I quote from their special report on climate change and land. Panmao Zhai is one of its authors.
2.2.1 From its summary for policy-makers:
Part A: The climate is warming
A.1 "Human use directly affects more than 70% (likely 69–76%) of the global, ice-free land surface."
A.1.1 "People use one quarter to one third of land’s potential net primary production for food, feed, fibre, timber, and energy."
A.1.2 "Sustainable land management can reduce the negative impacts of multiple stressors, including climate change, on ecosystems and societies."
A.1.3 "Data available since 1961 show that global population growth and changes in per capita consumption of food, feed, fibre, timber, and energy have caused unprecedented rates of land and freshwater use, with agriculture currently accounting for ca. 70% of global fresh-water use." "With large regional variation, these changes have contributed to increasing net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, loss of natural ecosystems (e.g., forests, savannas, natural grasslands, and wetlands) and declining biodiversity."
A.1.4 "Data available since 1961 shows the per capita supply of vegetable oils and meat has more than doubled and the supply of food calories per capita has increased by about one third. 25–30% of the food produced is lost or wasted. These factors are associated with additional GHG emissions. Changes in consumption patterns have contributed to about two billion adults now being overweight or obese. An estimated 821 million people are still undernourished."
A.1.5 "About a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area is subject to human-induced degradation. Soil erosion from agricultural fields is estimated to be currently 10 to 20 times (no tillage) to more than 100 times (conventional tillage) higher than the soil formation rate. Climate change exacerbates land degradation, particularly in low-lying coastal areas, river deltas, drylands, and permafrost areas. Over the period 1961–2013, the annual area of drylands in drought has increased, on average by slightly more than 1% per year, with large inter-annual variability. In 2015, about 500 million people lived within areas which experienced desertification between the 1980s and 2000s."
Graciela Metternicht made available this map of drylands. They represent some 41% of all land.
A.2.4 "The frequency and intensity of dust storms have increased over the last few decades due to land use and land cover changes, and climate-related factors in many dryland areas, resulting in increasing negative impacts on human health, in regions such as the Arabian Peninsula and broader Middle East, and Central Asia."
A.2.5 "In some dryland areas, increased land surface air temperature and evapotranspiration, and decreased precipitation amount, in interaction with climate variability and human activities, have contributed to desertification. These areas include Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of East and Central Asia, and Australia."
A.2.6 "Global warming has led to shifts of climate zones in many world regions, including expansion of arid climate zones and contraction of polar climate zones. As a consequence, many plant and animal species have experienced changes in their ranges, abundances, and shifts in their seasonal activities."
A.2.7 "Climate change can exacerbate land degradation processes including through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, dry spells, wind, sea-level rise and wave action, and permafrost thaw, with outcomes being modulated by land management. Ongoing coastal erosion is intensifying and impinging on more regions with sea-level rise adding to land use pressure in some regions."
A.2.8 "Climate change has resulted in lower animal growth rates and productivity in pastoral systems in Africa." "Based on indigenous and local knowledge, climate change is affecting food security in drylands, particularly those in Africa, and high mountain regions of Asia and South America."
A.3.2 "Projected thawing of permafrost is expected to increase the loss of soil carbon."
A.3.4 "Ruminants and the expansion of rice cultivation are important contributors to the rising concentration [of methane]."
A.3.6 "Total net GHG emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) emissions represented 12.0 ± 2.9 Gt CO2eq per year during 2007–2016. This represents 23% of total net anthropogenic emissions. Other approaches, such as global food system, include agricultural emissions and land use change (i.e., deforestation and peatland degradation), as well as outside farm gate emissions from energy, transport, and industry sectors for food production." "Emissions outside the farm gate represent 5–10% of total anthropogenic emissions."
A.4 "changing land conditions can reduce or accentuate warming and affect the intensity, frequency and duration of extreme events."
A.4.2 "Changes in land conditions can affect temperature and rainfall in regions as far as hundreds of kilometres away."
This calls for replacing a statement like "I do what I want on my land." with a statement like: We, humans, agree on what we do on Earth.
A.4.3 "Drier soil conditions resulting from climate change can increase the severity of heat waves, while wetter soil conditions have the opposite effect."
A.4.4 "Desertification amplifies global warming through the release of CO2 linked with the decrease in vegetation cover."
A.4.5 "Changes in forest cover, for example from afforestation, reforestation and deforestation, directly affect regional surface temperature through exchanges of water and energy."
A.4.6 "global warming and urbanisation can enhance warming in cities and their surroundings (heat island effect), especially during heat-related events, including heat waves." Night temperatures increase more than daytime temperatures.
A.5 "Climate change creates additional stresses on land, exacerbating existing risks to livelihoods, biodiversity, human and ecosystem health, infrastructure, and food systems."
A.5.1 "With increasing warming, the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat-related events including heatwaves are projected to continue to increase through the 21st century. The frequency and intensity of droughts are projected to increase particularly in the Mediterranean region and southern Africa. The frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events are projected to increase in many regions."
A.5.2 "With increasing warming, climate zones are projected to further shift poleward in the middle and high latitudes. In high-latitude regions, warming is projected to increase disturbance in boreal forests, including drought, wildfire, and pest outbreaks. In tropical regions, under medium and high GHG emissions scenarios, warming is projected to result in the emergence of unprecedented climatic conditions by the mid to late 21st century."
A.5.3 "At around 1.5°C of global warming the risks from dryland water scarcity, wildfire damage, permafrost degradation, and food supply instabilities are projected to be high."
A.5.4 "The stability of food supply is projected to decrease as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt food chains increases. Increased atmospheric CO2 levels can also lower the nutritional quality of crops."
A.5.5 "In drylands, climate change and desertification are projected to cause reductions in crop and livestock productivity, modify the plant species mix and reduce biodiversity."
A.5.6 "Asia and Africa are projected to have the highest number of people vulnerable to increased desertification. North America, South America, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and central Asia may be increasingly affected by wildfire. The tropics and subtropics are projected to be most vulnerable to crop yield decline. Land degradation resulting from the combination of sea-level rise and more intense cyclones is projected to jeopardise lives and livelihoods in cyclone prone areas. Within populations, women, the young, the elderly, and the poor are most at risk."
This can decrease the desire to make children, seemingly felt more when one is poorer.
It seems one won't want to be a poor woman. Given that women have been more probable to control fewer resources, how are we going to change this soon?
A.5.7 "Changes in climate can amplify environmentally induced migration both within countries and across borders, reflecting multiple drivers of mobility and available adaptation measures. Extreme weather and climate or slow-onset events may lead to increased displacement, disrupted food chains, threatened livelihoods, and contribute to exacerbated stresses for conflict."
Some people are fighting over resources.
A.5.8 "Unsustainable land management has led to negative economic impacts. Climate change is projected to exacerbate these negative economic impacts."
To the extent that you want economic benefits from any piece of land, it's worth tasking us to help manage it more sustainably.
A.6 "The level of risk posed by climate change depends both on the level of warming and on how population, consumption, production, technological development, and land management patterns evolve." Pathways with lower demand for food, feed, and water, less resource-intensive consumption and production, and more technological improvements in agriculture yields lower risks from water scarcity in drylands, land degradation, and food insecurity.
A.6.1 "Projected increases in population and income, combined with changes in consumption patterns, result in increased demand for food, feed, and water in 2050" "These changes, combined with land management practices, have implications for land-use change, food insecurity, water scarcity, terrestrial GHG emissions, carbon sequestration potential, and biodiversity." "pathways in which incomes increase and the demand for land conversion is reduced, either through reduced agricultural demand or improved productivity, can lead to reductions in food insecurity. All assessed future socio-economic pathways result in increases in water demand and water scarcity." "greater cropland expansion result[s] in larger declines in biodiversity."
Somebody at the European Parliament wrote: "biodiversity provides us with clean air, fresh water, good quality soil and crop pollination. It helps us fight climate change and adapt to it as well reduce the impact of natural hazards."
A.6.5 "Urban expansion is projected to lead to conversion of cropland, leading to losses in food production. This can result in additional risks to the food system. Strategies for reducing these impacts can include urban and peri-urban food production and management of urban expansion, as well as urban green infrastructure that can reduce climate risks in cities."
We can help manage parks in localities and croplands.
As I'm writing this, I received news about new flooding in Pakistan. Abid Ali Mirani reports:
Part B: How can we mitigate its warming?
B.1.1 "sustainable food production, improved and sustainable forest management, soil organic carbon management, ecosystem conservation and land restoration, reduced deforestation and degradation, and reduced food loss and waste"
a. You can order with Sol food produced more sustainably, e.g. with fewer losses.
They also help avoid waste across the food cycle.
b. You can task us to help reach a certain sustainability of how a forest is managed.
We can help restore or rehabilitate land.
B.1.2 "While some response options have immediate impacts, others take decades to deliver measurable results. Examples of response options with immediate impacts include the conservation of high-carbon ecosystems such as peatlands, wetlands, rangelands, mangroves and forests. Examples that provide multiple ecosystem services and functions, but take more time to deliver, include afforestation and reforestation as well as the restoration of high-carbon ecosystems, agroforestry, and the reclamation of degraded soils."
B.1.3 "Achieving land degradation neutrality depends on the integration of multiple responses across local, regional and national scales, and across multiple sectors including agriculture, pasture, forest, and water."
B.1.4 "Land-based options that deliver carbon sequestration in soil or vegetation, such as afforestation, reforestation, agroforestry, soil carbon management on mineral soils, or carbon storage in harvested wood products, do not continue to sequester carbon indefinitely. Peatlands, however, can continue to sequester carbon for centuries. When vegetation matures or when vegetation and soil carbon reservoirs reach saturation, the annual removal of CO2 from the atmosphere declines towards zero, while carbon stocks can be maintained. However, accumulated carbon in vegetation and soils is at risk from future loss (or sink reversal) triggered by disturbances such as flood, drought, fire, or pest outbreaks, or future poor management."
B.2 "Many response options can be applied without competing for land and have the potential to provide multiple co-benefits. A further set of response options has the potential to reduce demand for land, thereby enhancing the potential for other response options to deliver across each of climate change adaptation and mitigation, combating desertification and land degradation, and enhancing food security."
B.2.1 "a number of response options, such as increased food productivity, dietary choices, [and the reduction of] food losses and waste, can reduce demand for land conversion, thereby potentially freeing land and creating opportunities for enhanced implementation of other response options."
B.2.2 "A wide range of adaptation and mitigation responses, e.g., preserving and restoring natural ecosystems such as peatland, coastal lands, and forests, biodiversity conservation, reducing competition for land, fire management, soil management, and most risk management options (e.g., use of local seeds, disaster risk management, risk sharing instruments) have the potential to make positive contributions to sustainable development, enhancement of ecosystem functions and services and other societal goals. Ecosystem-based adaptation can, in some contexts, promote nature conservation while alleviating poverty and can even provide co-benefits by removing GHGs and protecting livelihoods (e.g., mangroves)."
B.2.3 "Most of the land management-based response options that do not increase competition for land, and almost all options based on value chain management (e.g., dietary choices, reduced post-harvest losses, reduced food waste) and risk management, can contribute to eradicating poverty and eliminating hunger while promoting good health and wellbeing, clean water and sanitation"
B.4.1 "Solutions that help adapt to and mitigate climate change [...]: water harvesting and micro-irrigation, restoring degraded lands using drought-resilient ecologically appropriate plants, agroforestry, and other agro-ecological and ecosystem-based adaptation practices."
B.4.2 "Reducing dust and sand storms, and sand dune movement can lessen the negative effects of wind erosion and improve air quality and health. Depending on water availability and soil conditions, afforestation, tree planting and ecosystem restoration programs, which aim for the creation of windbreaks in the form of ‘green walls’ and ‘green dams’ using native and other climate-resilient tree species with low water needs, can reduce sand storms, avert wind erosion, and contribute to carbon sinks, while improving micro-climates, soil nutrients, and water retention."
B.4.3 "Measures to combat desertification can promote soil carbon sequestration. Natural vegetation restoration and tree planting on degraded land enrich, in the long term, carbon in the topsoil and subsoil." "If soil carbon is lost, it may take a prolonged period of time for carbon stocks to recover."
B.4.4 "Eradicating poverty and ensuring food security can benefit from applying measures promoting land degradation neutrality (including avoiding, reducing and reversing land degradation) in rangelands, croplands, and forests, which contribute to combating desertification, while mitigating, and adapting to, climate change" "Such measures include avoiding deforestation and locally suitable practices including management of rangeland and forest fires."
B.4.5 "Some adaptation options can become maladaptive due to their environmental impacts, such as irrigation causing soil salinisation or over extraction leading to groundwater depletion. Extreme forms of desertification can lead to the complete loss of land productivity, limiting adaptation options or reaching the limits to adaptation."
B.4.6 "The efficiency of wind and solar energy infrastructures is recognised; the efficiency can be affected in some regions by dust and sand storms."
You can plan with Sol Energy.
B.5 "Reducing and reversing land degradation, at scales from individual farms to entire watersheds, can provide cost-effective, immediate, and long-term benefits to communities and support several sustainable development goals (SDG) with co-benefits for adaptation and mitigation."
B.5.1 "Land degradation in agriculture systems can be addressed through sustainable land management, with an ecological and socioeconomic focus, with co-benefits for climate change adaptation. Management options that reduce vulnerability to soil erosion and nutrient loss include growing green manure crops and cover crops, crop residue retention, reduced / zero tillage, and maintenance of ground cover through improved grazing management."
B.5.2 "Farming systems such as agroforestry, perennial pasture phases, and use of perennial grains can substantially reduce erosion and nutrient leaching while building soil carbon."
B.5.3 "Reducing deforestation and forest degradation lowers GHG emissions, with an estimated technical mitigation potential of 0.4–5.8 Gt CO2 per year. By providing long-term livelihoods for communities, sustainable forest management can reduce the extent of forest conversion to non-forest uses (e.g., cropland or settlements). Sustainable forest management aimed at providing timber, fibre, biomass, non-timber resources, and other ecosystem functions and services, can lower GHG emissions and can contribute to adaptation."
B.5.4 "Sustainable forest management can maintain or enhance forest carbon stocks, and can maintain forest carbon sinks, including by transferring carbon to wood products, thus addressing the issue of sink saturation. Where wood carbon is transferred to harvested wood products, these can store carbon over the long-term and can substitute for emissions-intensive materials, reducing emissions in other sectors."
B.5.5 "exceeding the limits of adaptation can trigger escalating losses or result in undesirable transformational changes such as forced migration, conflicts, or poverty. Examples of land degradation induced by climate change that may exceed limits to adaptation include coastal erosion exacerbated by sea level rise where land disappears, thawing of permafrost affecting infrastructure and livelihoods, and extreme soil erosion causing loss of productive capacity."
B.6 "Response options throughout the food system, from production to consumption, including food loss and waste, can be deployed and scaled up to advance adaptation and mitigation. The total technical mitigation potential from crop and livestock activities, and agroforestry is estimated at 2.3 – 9.6 Gt CO2eq per year by 2050. The total technical mitigation potential of dietary changes is estimated at 0.7 – 8 Gt CO2eq per year by 2050."
B.6.1 "Practices that contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation in cropland include increasing soil organic matter, erosion control, improved fertiliser management, improved crop management, for example paddy rice management, and use of varieties and genetic improvements for heat and drought tolerance."
B.6.2 "Diversification in the food system (e.g., implementation of integrated production systems, broad-based genetic resources, and diets) can reduce risks from climate change. Balanced diets, featuring plant-based foods, such as those based on coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low-GHG emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health. By 2050, dietary changes could free several million km2 of land."
B.6.3 "Reduction of food loss and waste can lower GHG emissions and contribute to adaptation through reduction in the land area needed for food production. During 2010-2016, global food loss and waste contributed 8–10% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions." "Technical options such as improved harvesting techniques, on-farm storage, infrastructure, transport, packaging, retail, and education can reduce food loss and waste across the supply chain." "By 2050, reduced food loss and waste can free several million km2 of land."
B.7 "All assessed modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5ºC or well below 2°C require land-based mitigation and land-use change, with most including different combinations of reforestation, afforestation, reduced deforestation, and bioenergy."
Part C: How do we enable its mitigation?
C.1.1 "Land-use zoning, spatial planning, integrated landscape planning, regulations, incentives (such as payment for ecosystem services), and voluntary or persuasive instruments (such as environmental farm planning, standards and certification for sustainable production, use of scientific, local and indigenous knowledge and collective action), can achieve positive adaptation and mitigation outcomes. They can also contribute revenue and provide incentive to rehabilitate degraded lands and adapt to, and mitigate, climate change in certain contexts. Policies promoting the target of land degradation neutrality can also support food security, human wellbeing, and climate change adaptation and mitigation."
C.1.2 "Land policies (including recognition of customary tenure, community mapping, redistribution, decentralisation, co-management, regulation of rental markets) can provide both security and flexibility response to climate change."
C.1.4 "weather and health insurance, social protection and adaptive safety nets, contingent finance and reserve funds, universal access to early warning systems combined with effective contingency plans."
C.2.1 "Policies that enable and incentivise sustainable land management for climate change adaptation and mitigation include improved access to markets for inputs, outputs, and financial services, empowering women and indigenous peoples, enhancing local and community collective action, reforming subsidies, and promoting an enabling trade system. Land restoration and rehabilitation efforts can be more effective when policies support local management of natural resources, while strengthening cooperation between actors and institutions, including at the international level."
C.2.2 "Reflecting the environmental costs of land-degrading agricultural practices can incentivise more sustainable land management."
You can task us to estimate such environmental costs and to help you eat at lower costs.
C.2.3 "Agricultural diversification, expansion of market access, and preparation for increasing supply chain disruption can support the scaling up of adaptation in food systems."
C.2.4 "Public health policies to improve nutrition, such as increasing the diversity of food sources in public procurement, health insurance, financial incentives, and awareness-raising campaigns, can influence food demand, reduce healthcare costs, contribute to lower GHG emissions, and enhance adaptive capacity. Influencing demand for food, through promoting diets based on public health guidelines, can enable more sustainable land management and contribute to achieving multiple SDGs."
C.3.1 "Addressing desertification, land degradation, and food security in an integrated, coordinated and coherent manner can assist climate-resilient development and provide numerous co-benefits."
C.3.2 "Many sustainable land management practices are not widely adopted due to insecure land tenure, lack of access to resources and agricultural advisory services, insufficient and unequal private and public incentives, and lack of knowledge and practical experience. Public discourse, carefully designed policy interventions, incorporating social learning, and market changes can together help reduce barriers to implementation."
We provide information and advice.
I invite any English speaker to this public discussion.
C.4 "The effectiveness of decision-making and governance is enhanced by the involvement of local stakeholders (particularly those most vulnerable to climate change including indigenous peoples and local communities, women, and the poor and marginalised) in the selection, evaluation, implementation, and monitoring of policy instruments for land-based climate change adaptation and mitigation. Integration across sectors and scales increases the chance of maximising co-benefits and minimising trade-offs."
The more people agree on how we manage resources together, the better we fare.
C.4.2 "Inclusiveness in the measurement, reporting, and verification of the performance of policy instruments can support sustainable land management. Involving stakeholders in the selection of indicators, collection of climate data, land modelling, and land-use planning mediates and facilitates integrated landscape planning and choice of policy."
C.4.4 "Empowering women can bring synergies and co-benefits to household food security and sustainable land management." "Policies that can address land rights and barriers to women’s participation in sustainable land management include financial transfers to women under the auspices of anti-poverty programmes, spending on health, education, training, and capacity-building for women, subsidised credit and program dissemination through existing women’s community-based organisations."
Part D: What do we do first?
D.1.1 "Near-term capacity-building, technology transfer and deployment, and enabling financial mechanisms can strengthen adaptation and mitigation in the land sector. Knowledge and technology transfer can help enhance the sustainable use of natural resources for food security under a changing climate. Raising awareness, capacity building and education about sustainable land management practices, agricultural extension and advisory services, and expansion of access to agricultural services to producers and land users can effectively address land degradation."
D.1.4 "Sustainable land management can be improved by increasing the availability and accessibility of data and information relating to the effectiveness, co-benefits, and risks of emerging response options and increasing the efficiency of land use."
You can ask us for such data.
When you want less pollution, you can consult with us on actions more effective than carbon credits.
2.2.2 I add some quotes from Chapter 2: Interactions between land and climate. For these several paragraphs I reproduce the section numbering in this work.
2.2.1.2 It seems that the air temperature at the land surface has increased by 1.6 degrees Celsius since the 1850s.
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2.2.3 "The impact of climate change through changes [e.g. in air temperature and precipitation] is projected [with high confidence] to negatively impact all aspects of food security: food availability, access, utilisation, and stability."
"in the Northern Hemisphere the northward expansion of warmer temperatures in the middle and higher latitudes will lengthen the growing season, which may benefit crop productivity. However, continued rising temperatures are expected to impact global wheat yields by about 4–6% reductions for every degree of temperature rise and, across both mid- and low-latitude regions, rising temperatures are expected to be a constraining factor for maize productivity by the end of the century." "A recent study shows that 18–43% of the explained yield variance of four crops (maize, soybeans, rice, and spring wheat) is attributable to extremes of temperature and rainfall, depending on the crop type (Vogel et al. 2019)." In a world with less stable weather, Canada and most Slavic countries stand out as main sources of food. Why does Russia want to unite e.g. with Belorussia and Ukraine?
"Extremes also compromise critical food supply chain infrastructure, making transport of, and access to, harvested food more difficult (Fanzo et al. 2018)."
The authors of the mentioned work pointed out:
"Climate change is ongoing, and its future effects will be most pronounced especially south of the Sahara and in Southeast Asia." This can mean that a huge number of people would move north to live in Eurasia. Asia is already arid in the centre and in the southwest. When is it time to learn Russian?
"Without action, climate change will impact nutrition through decreased food quantity and access, decreased dietary diversity, and decreased food nutritional content." Then the average health of the global population is probable to worsen. Life expectancy (72 years) and fertility (2.44 in 2020) might decrease. Some governments allow people to retire later, so it becomes less and less probable for their citizens to receive pensions. To the extent you want a pension, we can agree on what actions we'd take to make it happen.
2.2.4 "It is very likely that terrestrial ecosystems and land processes will be exposed to disturbances beyond the range of current natural variability as a result of global warming, even under low- to medium-range warming scenarios, and that these disturbances will alter the structure, composition, and functioning of the system."
extreme weather
As heatwaves, wild fires, and floods continue, one might avoid the places in which they happen.
2.2.5.1 "heat-related events have been made more frequent or more intense due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in most land regions."
2.2.5.2 "forests may become less resilient to heat stress due to the long recovery period required to replace lost biomass and the projected increased frequency of heat and drought events." "widespread regional tree mortality may be triggered directly by drought and heat stress (including warm winters) and exacerbated by insect outbreak and fire."
"Gross primary production (GPP) and soil respiration form the largest and the second-largest carbon fluxes from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere in the global carbon cycle." "Longer extreme events (heatwave or drought or both) result in a greater reduction in carbon sequestration and may also reverse long-term carbon sinks." "compound effects of, for example, deforestation, fire, and drought, can result in changes to regional precipitation patterns and river discharge, losses of carbon storage, and a transition to a disturbance-dominated regime."

2.3 I quote from the summary for policy-makers of the sixth assessment report by IPCC.
B.1.1 "Global net anthropogenic GHG emissions were 59 ± 6.6 Gt CO2-eq in 2019, about 12% (6.5 Gt CO2-eq) higher than in 2010 and 54% (21 Gt CO2-eq) higher than in 1990. The annual average during the decade 2010–2019 was 56 ± 6.0 Gt CO2-eq, 9.1 Gt CO2-eq per year higher than in 2000–2009. This is the highest increase in average decadal emissions on record."
B.1.3 "Historical cumulative net CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2019 were 2400 ± 240 Gt CO2. Of these, [...] about 42% [occurred] between 1990 and 2019 [1000 ± 90 Gt CO2]. About 17% of historical cumulative net CO2 emissions since 1850 occurred between 2010 and 2019 [410 ± 30 Gt CO2]. By comparison, the current central estimate of the remaining carbon budget from 2020 onwards for limiting warming to 2°C with a probability of 67% has been assessed as 1150 Gt CO2."
We're heating our environment quickly. It will probably become warmer by 2°C by 2050.
B.2.1 "In 2019, approximately 34% (20 Gt CO2-eq) of total net anthropogenic GHG emissions came from the energy supply sector, 24% (14 Gt CO2-eq) from industry, 22% (13 Gt CO2-eq) from agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU), 15% (8.7 Gt CO2-eq) from transport, and 6% (3.3 Gt CO2-eq) from buildings. If emissions from electricity and heat production are attributed to the sectors that use the final energy, 90% of these indirect emissions are allocated to the industry and buildings sectors, increasing their relative GHG emissions shares from 24% to 34%, and from 6% to 16%, respectively."
This means that the industry emitted 20 Gt CO2-eq. and buildings 9.4 Gt CO2-eq. This can mean that we emitted some 8 Gt CO2-eq. to supply energy for using land and for transportation.
B.2.2 "About half of total net AFOLU emissions are from land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF), predominantly from deforestation."
B.3.1 "GHG emissions trends over 1990–2019 vary widely across regions and over time, and across different stages of development. Average global per capita net anthropogenic GHG emissions increased from 7.7 to 7.8 t CO2-eq, ranging from 2.6 t CO2-eq to 19 t CO2-eq across regions. Least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have much lower per capita emissions (1.7 t CO2-eq and 4.6 t CO2-eq, respectively) than the global average (6.9 t CO2-eq), excluding CO2-LULUCF."
B.3.4 "Globally, the 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute 34–45% of global consumption-based household GHG emissions, while the middle 40% contribute 40–53%, and the bottom 50% contribute 13–15%."
B.3.5 "At least 18 countries have sustained production-based GHG and consumption-based CO2 emission reductions for longer than 10 years. Reductions were linked to energy supply decarbonisation, energy efficiency gains, and energy demand reduction, which resulted from both policies and changes in economic structure. Some countries have reduced production-based GHG emissions by a third or more since peaking, and some have achieved several years of consecutive reduction rates of around 4% per year, comparable to global reductions in scenarios limiting warming to 2°C (>67%)"
B.4.1 "From 2010 to 2019, there have been sustained decreases in the unit costs of solar energy (85%), wind energy (55%), and lithium-ion batteries (85%), and large increases in their deployment, e.g., >10× for solar and >100× for electric vehicles (EVs), varying widely across regions."
B.4.3 "Digital technologies can contribute to mitigation of climate change and the achievement of several SDGs." "Digital technology supports decarbonisation only if appropriately governed."
That's why you'd use the services and software of Sol Computing.
C.3.2 "The use of coal, oil and gas without carbon capture and storage (CCS) in modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot is projected to be reduced [...by] median values of about 100%, 60% and 70% in 2050 compared to 2019." "In these global modelled pathways, in 2050 almost all electricity is supplied from zero- or low-carbon sources, such as renewables or fossil fuels with CCS, combined with increased electrification of energy demand."
Why this dream when people crave for gas and using lithium has high environmental costs?
C.3.4 "In modelled pathways that reach global net zero GHG emissions, at the point they reach net zero GHG, around 74% [...] of global emissions reductions are achieved by CO2 reductions in energy supply and demand"
I wish! It's good that at least we're thinking about it.
C.4.2 "Low-emission energy sector transitions will have multiple co-benefits, including improvements in air quality and health."
Sol Science invests in research into more useful energy management. Let me know when you want to use such research or to conduct new research!
C.4.5 "Global methane emissions from energy supply, primarily fugitive emissions from production and transport of fossil fuels, accounted for about 18% of global GHG emissions from energy supply, 32% of global CH4 emissions, and 6% of global GHG emissions in 2019. About 50–80% of CH4 emissions from these fossil fuels could be avoided with currently available technologies at less than USD 50 / t CO2-eq."
C.5.3 "Action to reduce industry sector emissions may change the location of GHG-intensive industries and the organisation of value chains. Regions with abundant low-GHG energy and feedstocks have the potential to become exporters of hydrogen-based chemicals and materials processed using low-carbon electricity and hydrogen. Such reallocation will have global distributional effects on employment and economic structure."
C.5.4 "international cooperation and coordination may be particularly important in enabling change."
I've been saying this for many years. The business group Sol group has the mission to help people communicate and cooperate as they like so that they can reach their most important goals.
C.6.2 "For cities, three broad mitigation strategies have been found to be effective when implemented concurrently:
(i) reducing or changing energy and material use towards more sustainable production and consumption;
(ii) electrification in combination with switching to low-emission energy sources;
(iii) enhancing carbon uptake and storage in the urban environment, for example through bio-based building materials, permeable surfaces, green roofs, trees, green spaces, rivers, ponds and lakes."
C.6.4 "A growing number of cities are setting climate targets, including net-zero GHG targets. Given the regional and global reach of urban consumption patterns and supply chains, the full potential for reducing consumption-based urban emissions to net zero GHG can be met only when emissions beyond cities’ administrative boundaries are also addressed. The effectiveness of these strategies depends on cooperation and coordination with national and sub-national governments, industry, and civil society, and whether cities have adequate capacity to plan and implement mitigation strategies. Cities can play a positive role in reducing emissions across supply chains that extend beyond cities’ administrative boundaries, for example through building codes and the choice of construction materials."
Your city can hire teams of the Sol group to make it healthier and more enjoyable.
C.7.1 "In 2019, global direct and indirect GHG emissions from buildings and emissions from cement and steel use for building construction and renovation were 12 Gt CO2-eq. These emissions include indirect emissions from offsite generation of electricity and heat, direct emissions produced onsite, and emissions from cement and steel used for building construction and renovation. In 2019, global direct and indirect emissions from non-residential buildings increased by about 55% and those from residential buildings increased by about 50% compared to 1990. The latter increase, according to the decomposition analysis, was mainly driven by the increase of the floor area per capita, population growth, and the increased use of emission-intensive electricity and heat"
We can help you use energy and space more efficiently.
It seems it becomes more and more expensive to erect buildings. Sol Real Estate helps people to manage buildings more affordably.
C.7.3 "The 2020–2030 decade is critical for accelerating the learning of know-how, building the technical and institutional capacity, setting the appropriate governance structures, ensuring the flow of finance, and developing the skills needed to fully capture the mitigation potential of buildings."
C.8.3 "There are growing concerns about critical minerals needed for batteries."
How sustainable are electric cars?
Batteries are not sustainable, so let's improve the production of electrical energy from faster renewable resources!
C.8.4 "While efficiency improvements (e.g., optimised aircraft and vessel designs, mass reduction, and propulsion system improvements) can provide some mitigation potential, additional CO2 emissions mitigation technologies for aviation and shipping will be required."
In other words: rail me your products!
C.9.3 "Land-use decisions are often spread across a wide range of land owners; demand-side measures depend on billions of consumers in diverse contexts. Barriers to the implementation of AFOLU mitigation include insufficient institutional and financial support, uncertainty over long-term additionality and trade-offs, weak governance, insecure land ownership, low incomes and the lack of access to alternative sources of income, and the risk of reversal. Limited access to technology, data, and know-how is a barrier to implementation. Research and development are key for all measures."
Sol Data Management help improve the use of data.
C.10.1 "Infrastructure design and access, and technology access and adoption, including information and communication technologies, influence patterns of demand and ways of providing services"
C.10.2 "Individuals with high socio-economic status [...] have the highest potential for emissions reductions, e.g., as citizens, investors, consumers, role models, and professionals."
C.10.4 "Choice architecture can help end-users adopt, as relevant to consumers, culture and country contexts, low-GHG-intensive options such as balanced, sustainable healthy diets acknowledging nutritional needs; food waste reduction; adaptive heating and cooling choices for thermal comfort; building-integrated renewable energy; electric light-duty vehicles, and shifts to walking, cycling, shared pooled and public transit; and sustainable consumption by intensive use of longer-lived repairable products (high confidence). Addressing inequality and many forms of status consumption, and focusing on wellbeing support climate change mitigation efforts."
C.11.1 "Afforestation, reforestation, improved forest management, agroforestry, and soil carbon sequestration are currently the only widely practiced [...] methods" to move CO2 from the atmosphere into the biosphere and the pedosphere. They have a higher potential and lower costs.
C.12 "The global economic benefit of limiting warming to 2°C is reported to exceed the cost of mitigation in most of the assessed literature."
C.12.1 "Based on a detailed sectoral assessment of mitigation options, it is estimated that mitigation options costing up to USD 100 / t CO2-eq could reduce global GHG emissions by at least half of the 2019 level by 2030. (Options costing less than USD 20 / t CO2-eq are estimated to make up more than half of this potential). For a smaller part of the potential, deployment leads to net cost savings. Large contributions with costs less than USD 20 / t CO2-eq come from solar and wind energy, energy efficiency improvements, reduced conversion of natural ecosystems, and CH4 emissions reductions (coal mining, oil and gas, waste)."
C.12.3 "Modelled pathways with a peak in global emissions between now and 2025 at the latest, compared to modelled pathways with a later peak in global emissions, entail more rapid near-term transitions and higher up-front investments, but bring long-term gains for the economy, as well as earlier benefits of avoided climate change impacts (high confidence). The precise magnitude of these gains and benefits is difficult to quantify."
Improvements in what sectors can lead to reductions in GHG emissions?

sector	yearly reduction of GHG emissions, Gt
energy	10
forest management	8
agriculture	4
food	4
transportation	3

These 5 actions seem to point to how we could halve our emissions.
We can agree on the extent to which ordering transportation with Sol helps here.
Sol Land Management can help with b and c.

D.3.1 "Countries at all stages of economic development seek to improve the well-being of people, and their development priorities reflect different starting points and contexts. Different contexts include social, economic, environmental, cultural, or political conditions, resource endowment, capabilities, international environment, and history. The enabling conditions for shifting development pathways towards increased sustainability will therefore also differ, giving rise to different needs."
E.1.1 "Several mitigation options, notably solar energy, wind energy, electrification of urban systems, urban green infrastructure, energy efficiency, demand-side management, improved forest- and crop/grassland management, and reduced food waste and loss, are technically viable, are becoming increasingly cost-effective, and are generally supported by the public. This enables deployment in many regions."
E.6.2 "International cooperation on technology development and transfer accompanied by [...] knowledge sharing, and technical and financial support can accelerate the global diffusion of mitigation technologies, practices and policies at national and sub-national levels, and align these with other development objectives."

3. Application to a piece of land

Feel free to discuss anything about managing land, especially when you want something done about a piece of land that you own! I give examples of what this team can do for land owners.
We can take actions recommended by the IPCC.
We can prevent some harmful things from reaching your land. (Things that are not moved by beings are difficult to influence: air, precipitation, etc.)
We can remove some artefacts and waste from your land to let the soil recover.
We can help use regenerative practices so that the soil stores more carbon.
We can manage plant residues, e.g. add some to certain soils.
We can create windbreaks.
We can plant vegetation e.g. in order to forest some land.