Land Use Change, Food Security, and Long-Range Telecoupling

Former post-doctoral associate John Connors worked with Center Director Anthony Janetos to understand the global impacts of crop losses in different regions around the world. This research sought to characterize the impacts of agricultural failures in key breadbaskets on global land use and carbon emissions. Connors implemented a global integrated assessment model on BU’s supercomputing system to rapidly run multiple model scenarios simultaneously. Building upon the Pardee Center’s research on multiple breadbasket failure, this research sought to reveal where losses in agriculture may have the greatest global impacts, providing insights into the relationships among distant locations (i.e. telecouplings). Connors coordinated an interdisciplinary team of researchers to prepare and submit proposals on this topic to the National Science Foundation and other funding sources.