Human use of biomass has become a major component of the global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen. The use of land for biomass production (e.g. cropland) is among the most important pressures on biodiversity. At the same time, biomass is indispensable for humans as food, animal feed,...

Human-induced vegetation fires destroy a large amount of biomass each year and thus constitute an important fraction of the human interference with the energy flows of terrestrial ecosystems. This paper presents a quantification of the biomass burned in large-scale as well as small-scale...

Humanity's role in shaping patterns and processes in the terrestrial biosphere is large and growing. Most of the earth's fertile land is used more or less intensively by humans for resource extraction, production, transport, consumption and waste deposition or as living space. Biomass production...

Biomass trade results in a growing spatial disconnect between environmental impacts due to biomass production and the places where biomass is being consumed. The pressure on ecosystems resulting from the production of traded biomass, however, is highly variable between regions and products. We...

Land degradation, the temporary or permanent reduction of land's productive capacity resulting from poor land management, has gained considerable attention as an environmental and development issue of global importance, in particular in the Earth's drylands. This study presents a global estimate...

This study presents a national level analysis of changes in land use and land cover in New Zealand from 1860 to 2005. We employ the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) framework to assess land use induced impacts on ecological energy flows by accounting for socioeconomic...

Global trade of biomass-related products is growing exponentially, resulting in increasing ‘teleconnections’ between producing and consuming regions. Sustainable management of the earth's lands requires indicators to monitor these connections across regions and scales. The ‘embodied human...