Landscape Diversity Enhances Climate Change Resilience: A Review

Abstract

The review aimed at understanding landscape diversity in the face of global population pressure, agricultural land shortages, food insecurity, and climate insecurity. We used published literature to determine whether landscape diversity improves resilience to climate change. Literature searches were performed using the Science Direct database, Google Scholar search engine, and the professional network ResearchGate using keywords. Land degradation, soil resilience, and natural resources from 2000 to 2019. 120 publications were searched, including journal articles, reports, and book chapters. Of these, 68 were considered more relevant and all were read and considered in writing this review. Climate change, food insecurity, and land degradation have been established to be major challenges for developing countries leading to the loss of genetic diversity. Our results show that the loss of proper habitat may allow fast-growing invaders to occupy the remaining limited resources. Therefore, alien species may accelerate invasion under human-induced land-use changes during times of global change. The time lag between range expansion and habitat loss has been thwarted. A golden window to prevent the spread of alien species established in the habitat.