As the climate crisis grows ever more urgent, land conservationists are taking meaningful action to reduce carbon in the atmosphere and protect natural systems from the unavoidable impacts of a warming planet, according to a new report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

From the Great Plains of the United States to the high-altitude wetlands of Ecuador, land trusts and conservancies are developing and implementing creative, nature-based strategies to address climate change. In the report From the Ground Up: How Land Trusts and Conservancies are Providing Solutions to Climate Change, Lincoln Institute experts James N. Levitt and Chandni Navalkha document these initiatives through a dozen case examples that demonstrate how conservation organizations can help mitigate and adapt to climate change. 

“Such organizations are working in more than 100 nations on six continents,” write Levitt, director of the Lincoln Institute’s International Land Conservation Network, and Navalkha, the Lincoln Institute’s associate director of sustainably managed land and water resources. “They represent millions of engaged citizens working from Finland to Chile to pass our natural heritage on to future generations.” 

The report explores how land trusts and conservancies have addressed climate change in five distinct areas, with examples of successful initiatives in each:  

• Land Protection, Restoration, and Management
• Water Supply, Stormwater Management, and Buffering Against Sea-Level Rise  
• Biodiversity Conservation 
• Carbon Sequestration 
• Energy Production 

Among the cases, the report documents how The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is using sophisticated geospatial technology to identify sites  in the United States where wind turbines will not pose a threat to birds or other wildlife. The initiative, Site Wind Right, draws on more than 100 sources to map wind resources, wildlife habitat, infrastructure, and other relevant data. It identifies more than 90 million acres as suitable for wind turbines—enough land to generate wind power equal to the country’s entire electricity supply from all sources in 2018. 

Meanwhile, the South American capital city of Quito, Ecuador, has confronted threats to its water supply—made worse by climate change—through an ambitious land conservation program. The municipality worked with the local water provider and others to enhance water quality and supply downstream by conserving and better managing land upstream, in the high-altitude wetlands known as the Andean páramo, which surround the city. Through partnerships with international organizations, including TNC, the program has been replicated in at least seven other Latin American cities, generating more than USD $200 million for conservation efforts from 500 public and private partners. 

Drawing on these cases and 10 others, Levitt and Navalkha synthesize lessons learned and make five recommendations for those who seek to confront climate change through land conservation: Empower civic sector initiatives that are creative and ambitious in scope and scale; invest in initiatives with clear strategies and measurable impact; aim for broad collaborations; share advanced science, technologies, and financing techniques; and think long term. 

“In the evolving struggle to rein in and cope with climate change globally, all sectors must join forces to find solutions that are sustainable, replicable, and reliable,” the authors conclude. 

Will Jason is director of communications at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Image: Flint Hills Credit: Brad Mangas

The leading technology companies should be doing more to address climate change, says Silicon Valley chronicler Kara Swisher, host of the Sway podcast at the New York Times. Inventions await in manufacturing, materials, batteries, agriculture, land use monitoring, and carbon sequestration, she says. 
 
“A lot of these answers are going to be in how we build things, how we make things, how we consume things, how things are distributed—and tech really does play a part in it,” Swisher says in an interview for the Land Matters podcast. 

Technology has long been intertwined with the way people live, since well before the notion of the smart city and the Internet of Things. Traffic lights were transformative technology a century ago; today traffic and transit management is using Artificial Intelligence, there are apps for finding a parking space or getting a pothole filled, and 3D printing and other methodologies are part of building construction. 
 
Now expectations are even higher for addressing the biggest challenge facing humankind: the climate crisis. Swisher predicted in a New York Times column at the end of 2019 that there were abundant, lucrative opportunities for tech entrepreneurs in green solutions. Their contribution might be vital as national governments struggle to come together on a global program to reduce emissions. 
 
“These are issues that are not going to solely be fixed by tech, but there’s a lot of technology that’s going to go into … how to build the right seawall and make it work, to less consumption to carbon capture to space travel, all kinds of things are all within the bailiwick of the tech industry,” Swisher said. 

One promising area among many is the task of monitoring global land use changes, fires, land clearing, severe weather, drought, and floods. Expect these platforms to get even more sophisticated as a kind of global dashboard, using artificial intelligence to map and understand all the climate data. 

“Our whole world is monitored,” Swisher says. “I think we can use it to help us really understand what’s happening versus anecdotal stuff that often happens when we make policy decisions.” 

Perils abound, including, for example, insufficiently vetted ideas involving shooting supposedly curative matter into the atmosphere—a geoengineering scheme depicted in the sci-fi novel Termination Shock, which Swisher recommends. 
 
The blurring of technology fixes that are truly good for the planet with those that simply make money was also underscored by the quirky tech entrepreneur featured in the film Don’t Look Up. “I thought it was perfect … this idea [of] that benign goodness that really masks malevolence and greed,” Swisher says. “I think the whole point of that character was that there are people on this planet that are more powerful than governments.” 
 
Climate change—and land’s role in both reducing emissions and adapting to new realities—is a core focus for the Lincoln Institute, which is also engaged in the role of technology in cities and in the stewardship of the earth. The Center for Geospatial Solutions has been developing precisely the kind of land use monitoring and mapping tools that Swisher talks about. 
 
You can listen to the show and subscribe to Land Matters on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines. 

Image: Kara Swisher Credit: vox

Further Reading 
 
City Tech: Mapping a More Efficient Approach to Land Use | Land Lines 
 
President’s Message: 2030 is Coming Soon, Let’s Get To Work | Land Lines 
 
Let’s Make the Future What it Used to Be | The Boston Globe 

From the suburban boomtowns of the Colorado River Basin to the postindustrial cities of the Northeast, communities across the United States can benefit from integrating land and water planning in the face of increasing water demands, climate change, and other risks, according to a new Policy Focus Report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

In Integrating Land Use and Water Management: Planning and Practice, author Erin Rugland of the Lincoln Institute’s Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy explains how integrating land and water can help communities deal with increased drought or flooding as they navigate the uncertainty of a warming planet and changes in their communities. She outlines best practices in land use planning and water management, provides a detailed menu of policy tools, and shares four success stories from vastly different places: Evans, Colorado; Hillsborough County, Florida; Philadelphia; and Golden Valley, Minnesota. 

“Water is not only essential to life and to thriving communities, but it brings value to land,” Rugland writes in the report. “Land use determines the character of communities and in turn greatly impacts water demand, water quality, and flooding risks. Connecting land with water and understanding these resources in the context of issues like equity, resiliency, and climate change is critical for building and sustaining healthy communities for the future.” 

Although land and water are inextricably linked, land use planning and water management have historically occurred in silos. Rugland clearly explains each discipline, focusing on a key policy framework for each—the comprehensive plan and the water management plan. Comprehensive plans lay out a community’s long-term vision, with an emphasis on themes like economic development, transportation, and housing. Water management plans vary more widely from place to place; some focus narrowly on drinking water supply, while others incorporate wastewater and stormwater. 

As the report describes, state policy can play a significant role in promoting the integration of land and water planning, whether through mandates or resources. Colorado, for instance, requires utilities to consider how land use efforts can reduce water use. The state also supports the Colorado Water and Land Use Planning Alliance, a peer learning group for local practitioners. Pennsylvania is one of five states to require a water element in local comprehensive plans. And Minnesota’s state legislature established the Metropolitan Council, one of the strongest regional planning agencies in the country, which helps communities in the Twin Cities area coordinate development plans with water supplies and requirements. 

The report shows how four communities, driven by state policy and their own initiative, have integrated land and water planning in different ways: 

• Evans, Colorado, used a new water efficiency plan to secure buy-in and resources to implement a fixture replacement program, landscape design regulations, and other measures.  
• Hillsborough County, Florida, which includes the Tampa metropolitan area, added a new One Water chapter to its comprehensive plan, leading to policies to encourage development near existing water supplies, deal with environmental damage, and invest in stormwater infrastructure.  
• Philadelphia enacted a plan to use green infrastructure to filter stormwater, reduce pollution, and improve quality of life.  
• Golden Valley, Minnesota, an inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis, is working with neighboring communities to protect water quality, mitigate stormwater runoff and flooding, promote conservation of drinking water, and renovate aging infrastructure. 

The report offers four key recommendations for policy makers based on the experiences of these communities and others: collaborate locally, coordinate regional expertise and oversight, build capacity through funding and technical assistance, and use state mandates. 

“Integrating Land Use and Water Management is relevant, informative, and necessary at this moment in time,” said Chi Ho Sham, president of the American Water Works Association and vice president and chief scientist of Eastern Research Group. “In the age of specialization, we have created many silos. As problems with the urban water cycle become more complex and multidimensional, collaboration with other disciplinary experts is needed. This report provides a practical bridge to facilitate collaboration between land use planners and water management.” 

Image: Master-planned community in Chandler, Arizona. Credit: Art Wager via Getty Images.

The final miles of the one-hour drive west from Boston to Knowlton Farm in Grafton, Massachusetts, wind through a patchwork of landscapes: wooded, residential lots with 1950s-style ranch homes; treeless subdivisions dominated by brand-new McMansions; and the rolling meadows of the 162-acre Hennessy Conservation Area. At last, the farm’s old red dairy barn, with a small sign reading “Hay 4 Sale,” emerges along a wooded country road. 

In its heyday, this 334-acre family business was a dairy farm. But when the dairy’s profits began drying up in the late 1990s, the Knowlton family sold its herd and focused on producing hay. On this late August day, fourth-generation farm owner Paul Knowlton is baling hay in a field beyond the barn that’s bordered by woodlands. A broad-winged hawk drifts overhead. The sun scorches, but the crisp afternoon light and cricket chorus hint that fall is on its way. Knowlton rides a small green tractor, towing a mechanical harvester that pops up neat, rectangular bales, like a jack-in-the-box, as it slices through the hayfield. 

In a year or two, things will look different here. Knowlton Farm will produce not only hay, but berries, pumpkins, leafy greens, and grass-fed beef—all underneath 3.1 megawatts (MW) of “agrivoltaic” solar arrays built to allow for production of renewable energy and crops on the same land. The income from this newly installed solar project will allow Knowlton to hold on to the farm, which his family has owned since the 1800s; he’ll also be able to plant new crops, acquire a small head of cattle, and experiment with regenerative farming practices that can help improve soil health, restore ecosystems, and sequester carbon. The arrays are part of a community solar project growing here that will produce enough electricity to power about 520 homes. A smaller array powers the farm’s activities. 

One such array undulates across a two-acre field behind the farmhouse. Unlike conventional ground-mounted solar arrays that hug the earth, this agrivoltaic array towers nine feet high. Knowlton planted a cover crop of winter rye grass to prepare the field for spring planting, and Monarchs and other butterflies flit among the rye and scattered wildflowers that pop up beneath the rows of gleaming panels. The panels are spaced dozens of feet apart to allow farm equipment to pass between them. 

Agrivoltaic systems, also known as dual-use solar, have been successfully deployed in Japan and some European countries over the last decade. They are emerging in the United States as a potentially promising way for farmland to contribute to climate mitigation and resilience, while keeping farmers on their land at a time of fundamental disruption in agriculture. Meanwhile, in the drought-stricken West, climate-smart agricultural transition strategies are encouraging the installation of more conventional solar energy systems on farmland that must be taken out of production. 

Siting renewable energy on farmland isn’t a new concept in this country. In the wind-rich Plains states, wind development has helped prop up struggling farm economies for a decade, and a 2021 study by Cornell University found that 44 percent of existing utility-scale solar in New York State has been developed on agricultural land (Katkar et al. 2021). Farmland’s wide-open spaces are particularly well-suited for renewable energy development, and it’s generally easier to connect rural solar projects to the grid because there is greater transmission capacity available, in comparison to dense urban areas. Farmers benefit from the payments for leasing a portion of their land, which can make all the difference at a time of rising farm bankruptcies. 

Now, as renewable energy gains strength and world leaders commit to energy transition goals, new opportunities are emerging. Solar is booming in the United States as photovoltaic costs continue to drop. The industry grew at a clip of 42 percent annually over the past decade. As of 2020 it was valued at $25.3 billion, with more than 100 Gigawatts of solar now installed in the country. President Biden’s recent announcement of an economy-wide goal of net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 ups the ante; Princeton University researchers estimate the net-zero goal will require the deployment of solar and wind energy on about 150 million acres, or land equivalent in size to Wyoming and Colorado (Larson et al. 2020). That could be a sizable chunk of U.S. farmland, which totaled nearly 900 million acres in 2020. At the same time, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is driving the retirement of 500,000 to 1 million acres of the Central Valley’s 5 million acres of irrigated farmland by 2040, as part of an effort to rebalance the state’s groundwater supplies. 

Investing in renewable energy on farmland could be a win for climate mitigation, conservation, and agriculture—for farmers and their local economies—but only if it’s done right, observers say. Dual-use solar represents “a potentially significant opportunity for agriculture and for rural America,” says David Haight, vice president of programs at American Farmland Trust, which is a third-party certifier for the Knowlton Farm project. “But it has to be done with farming in mind, and so that it doesn’t result in displacing farming across large parts of our landscape.” 

Haight says 90 percent of new solar capacity built by 2050 will be developed in rural areas. Solar on non-working farmland, meanwhile, can boost conservation goals by keeping farmers on their land. Well-managed farmland can provide a range of ecosystem services, from sequestering carbon to providing habitat for diverse native plant and animal species to buffering against floods, drought, and heat. 

Whether solar complements agricultural operations or replaces them on a portion of a farm, the associated revenue “can help financially struggling farmers sustain themselves through bad weather or tough economic times,” says Jim Holway, director of the Lincoln Institute’s Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy. Revenue from renewables, he adds, can also provide funds for socially beneficial water efficiency improvements or other soil and land conservation investments. 

Dual-Use Solar in the Northeast 

Between 2001 and 2016, according to the American Farmland Trust, approximately 105,500 acres of New England’s 3.97 million acres of farmland were lost to or threatened by development. Roughly 35 percent was irrevocably lost to urban development, while the remaining acreage was impacted by low-density residential development, which ultimately changes the nature of rural communities. 

Climate change adds further pressure, as extreme downpours, flooding, and intermittent drought, among other impacts, make farming more challenging (see sidebar). “The future unknowns of how to maintain farm viability are getting larger, and that leads to a lot of uncertainty about farmland staying in farming,” says Emily Cole, New England deputy director at American Farmland Trust. 

Agriculture is responsible for roughly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, but efforts to shift to farming practices that sequester carbon in soil could help agriculture be part of the solution; the National Academy of Sciences estimates the carbon sequestration potential of U.S. agricultural soil at 276 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 4 percent of U.S. emissions. Once farmland leaves a farmer’s hands for permanent development, however, that’s no longer possible, says Cole. “There’s no more opportunity to improve soil health practices or garner clean energy.” 

Paul Knowlton knows these pressures firsthand. Grafton is ground zero for what Massachusetts Audubon calls “the Sprawl Frontier,” a belt of rapidly developing communities in central Massachusetts outside Worcester, New England’s second-largest city. Land prices are high, and aging farmers face increasing pressure to sell their land. Knowlton has been approached by developers and even works as a carpenter in residential construction to supplement his farming income. “Every time I go to work, I see a farm destroyed. I am part of the machine, and I don’t like it,” he laments. 

For a time after selling its herd, the Knowlton family made ends meet with the hay operation and income from other jobs. But when the farmhouse needed major renovation, the family carved off one housing lot and sold it to a developer. That’s when Knowlton decided there had to be another way. In 2015, he installed a 2.5 MW conventional solar array that stabilized the farm economically with its lease payments. That success got Knowlton thinking that maybe he could install more solar arrays, but in a way that would allow him to plant around them. Coincidentally, the solar developer that built his first array, BlueWave, was thinking the same thing. 

BlueWave was founded by John DeVillars, a former Massachusetts Secretary of Environment and regional EPA administrator who has strong connections to the conservation community. It was one of the first solar developers in the state to jump on the incentives that Massachusetts’ 2018 Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) program provides for dual-use solar projects. 

“Our motivation is as much for land protection and supporting community and agriculture, as it is clean energy,” notes DeVillars. “Agrivoltaics is a great chance to strengthen rural communities . . . and allow everyone to share in the benefits of a cleaner environment and locally produced, healthier food.” 

The Knowlton Farm deal involves a slew of parties: AES, a global energy company that owns the project; the Massachusetts Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture; the University of Massachusetts, which will study the impact of the systems on the farm’s crop yields and soil conditions; American Farmland Trust; and a farm consultant, Iain Ward, who BlueWave recruited to help develop the planting plans and serve as an advisor to Knowlton. AES provides Knowlton with lease payments and a stipend to cover his farming costs, which will eventually allow him to retire from carpentry and achieve his lifelong dream of farming full-time. 

Not all dual-use solar developers pay stipends and hire farming consultants. Others simply pay the farmer to lease the land. “BlueWave’s model is progressive,” says Ward. “It’s farmer-first, farmer-friendly . . . the spirit of what I believe dual-use was intended to be.” 

Ward is a cranberry grower and an evangelist for regenerative agriculture who views dual-use solar as an opportunity to pay farmers to experiment with growing crops in new ways. He launched his own consulting business, Solar Agricultural Services, a few years ago. Decked in jeans and T-shirt, boots, and a brown sun hat, Ward shows a visitor Knowlton’s second, much larger dual-use array, located in a former pasture down the road from the hayfield. The panels in both arrays are bifacial, he says, meaning they allow some sunlight to penetrate their surface and reflect off the ground, which provides the crops more sunlight. The field under this 11.5-acre array will become pasture for beef cows in a year or two. Knowlton will plant mainly forage grasses, with some radishes and sugar pumpkins to support soil health. The field is now planted with a cover crop of winter rye grass. 

Knowlton is especially excited about the cows. “We haven’t had animals for so long,” he said wistfully, recalling how he used to milk the cows with his father and grandfather every weekend and every day after work. “I’m looking forward to getting back to that.” 

Ward hopes the results from Knowlton Farm will help inform a national conversation that could spur greater adoption of dual-use solar. Research to date has largely been conducted in experimental settings. A University of Arizona study on cherry tomatoes and two types of peppers found that the crops did better because they were spared direct sun. Jalapeño peppers lost less water via transpiration, suggesting that growing crops under PV panels can save water in a hot, dry climate (Barron-Gafford et al. 2019).  

Unpublished research from the University of Massachusetts similarly found that the solar panels helped reduce heat stress and contribute to higher yields for crops like broccoli, Swiss chard, kale, and peppers, though shade decreased yield in some crops (Sandler, Mupambi, and Jeranyami 2019). An analysis by researchers in Japan found certain types of agrivoltaic systems worked even with shade-intolerant crops like corn (Sekiyama and Nagashima 2019). 

Dual-use solar is likely best suited for smaller projects in regions where competition for land is stiff, because the economics are difficult without incentives, and a tremendous amount of oversight and technical assistance is required to ensure that farm management plans are sound. Construction costs for dual-use solar are roughly 40 percent higher than for conventional solar, says Drew Pierson, head of sustainability at BlueWave. Raised canopies increase both materials and labor costs. Insurance costs are also higher because of ongoing activity underneath the panels. 

Massachusetts leads the nation in dual-use solar because of its SMART program, which was designed to add 3,200 MW of solar to the grid. Under SMART, dual-use projects are eligible for a base compensation rate of $0.14–$0.26 per kWh of electricity produced, depending on the project size and local utility, and they receive an additional $0.06 per kWh federal incentive. To date, 11 projects, totaling 23 MW, have met the state’s rigorous eligibility requirements. (Even with the incentives, says De Villars, “the economics are very, very challenging, to say the least.”) 

New Jersey passed a similar incentive to Massachusetts last year. New York scores solar projects better if they have agrivoltaic features, but it’s unclear whether that will help incentivize projects or simply hasten their permitting, says Pierson. Agrivoltaics are also being developed for pollinator fields and rangeland in the Midwest and West. Meanwhile, researchers in California are studying whether solar installations could keep fallow farmland from disappearing altogether. 

Agriculture and Climate Change 

Agriculture and associated land use changes such as deforestation produced an estimated 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Factor in related activities such as packaging and processing, says the FAO, and the food system accounts for 34 percent of all emissions—a figure expected to rise as global population soars. Even as it contributes to climate change, agriculture is vulnerable to climate impacts: hotter temperatures, droughts, pests, and flooding are affecting crop yields, livestock conditions, and other critical elements of a functioning food supply. Regenerative practices that restore ecosystem health and sequester carbon, such as no-till methods and use of cover crops, are increasingly touted as a way for farmers to build resilience and be part of the climate solution. 

Solar on Farmland in the West 

In the West, water—or lack of it—is emerging as a key driver for renewable energy siting on farmland. Severe drought linked to climate change is shrinking water supplies just as population growth is increasing demand. With the federal declaration of drought in the Colorado River Basin in 2021, farmers in central Arizona face steep cuts in their allotment of river water. California and Colorado are similarly struggling to balance agricultural water use, rising urban water demands, and shrinking resources. 

“There’s always been this idea that the best soil is what determines the best agricultural land. We’re in a new paradigm here, and the best soil without water is dirt,” notes Lorelei Oviatt, director of planning for Kern County, California. 

In an effort to gain control of dwindling supplies, California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in 2014. One of the act’s key strategies is fallowing farmland. With farmland transitions on the table in California and other places in the drought-stricken West, the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy is researching sustainable futures for agriculture, and how to get from here to there, says Holway, the center’s director.  

Holway’s team is exploring how to facilitate voluntary transitions of agricultural land in a way that uses land markets, maintains agricultural economies, and keeps the most productive agriculture land in cultivation. The center is also investigating how to maximize ecosystem benefits and possibly sequester carbon on retired farmland. As part of this work, the Babbitt Center provided funding to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) to investigate the potential for solar development in the San Joaquin Valley. 

That region, which occupies the southern part of the state’s famously productive Central Valley, has the largest groundwater deficit in California and faces some of the worst impacts from overdraft, including land subsidence and drying wells, according to Ellen Hanak, vice president and director of the PPIC Water Policy Center. PPIC estimates that 10 to 20 percent of the valley’s farmland—500,000 to 1 million acres—will need to be retired to comply with the SGMA. 

“If we don’t plan how that transition happens, it’s going to have a billion-dollar economic impact,” says Holway. Home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and supply chain disruptions are among the cascading impacts that could ensue from haphazard land fallowing. PPIC is studying how solar development can facilitate the necessary agricultural retirement in a way that sustains income for farmers. The research is part of a larger study on climate-smart agricultural transitions that is looking at the benefits and costs of different land management options. PPIC is also exploring issues such as the air quality risks that arise from the dust, pests, and weeds that build up from different types of land fallowing, and the potential for winter rain-fed cropping. 

“We’re working with folks to look at some alternatives that could bring in revenues and avoid negative externalities, but also potentially generate some benefits, like soil carbon [storage], soil moisture retention, and habitat [protection]. Solar comes into this as one of the options that looks especially promising,” notes Hanak.  

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is also zeroing in on the San Joaquin Valley for renewable energy development. Its 2019 “Power of Place” report identified the San Joaquin as a promising location for the state to meet its renewable energy goals because it is more ecologically degraded than California’s inland deserts, where bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, and golden eagles still roam (Wu et al. 2019). California set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Additionally, it passed a law in 2018 requiring renewable energy resources to supply 100 percent of electricity by 2045.  

“TNC is obviously in favor of renewable energy development, but we’re very interested in rolling it out in ways that don’t harm existing habitat,” emphasizes Abigail Hart, project director in TNC’s California Water Program. “If you’re going to site renewable energy facilities on conservation land or agricultural land, then you need to make sure you’re doing it in places that aren’t critically important for some other reason like habitat,” confirms Jim Levitt, director of the International Land Conservation Network at the Lincoln Institute. “It’s important to be strategic.” 

Utility-scale solar is already underway in the San Joaquin Valley. Westlands Solar Park, one of the largest solar developments in the world, is under construction on 20,000 acres of former farmland that was contaminated with selenium in Fresno and King counties. The developer, CIM Group, plans to install at least 2,700 megawatts by the end of the decade, providing clean energy to more than 750,000 households. 

A smaller, 20 MW project was installed by E.ON Solar at Maricopa Orchards, a Kern County grower of almonds, oranges, and other crops. That project is part of a 6,000-acre habitat conservation plan devised by Maricopa Orchards and local officials; the plan allows solar development on 4,000 acres of farmland, but sets aside 2,000 acres as habitat for San Joaquin kit foxes, blunt-nosed leopard lizards, burrowing owls, and other at-risk species. “In some cases, land that has been out of production even for a couple of years can function as habitat for at-risk species,” explained Hart. The 2,000-acre set aside will allow for wildlife corridors on the property. The 20 MW array, which occupies 160 acres and is now owned by Dominion Energy of Virginia, is the first of multiple expected projects on the rest of the Maricopa parcel. Hart said that TNC looks to the deal “as a compelling example of how solar development could be done on impaired lands in a way that provides renewable energy and valuable habitat.”  

While wind and solar are high-value options for landowners, communities tend to question whether they provide “the same juice to the local economy” as housing or commercial development, says Hanak. Some communities, like San Bernardino County, have banned utility solar altogether. 

California’s solar tax exclusion, a statewide incentive passed in the early 2000s that prevents the installation of qualifying solar energy systems from affecting the assessment of a property, is one reason why communities fret the economics. It made sense for rooftop installations and smaller-scale projects, but does not work for today’s large-scale solar projects, observes Oviatt. Hanak agrees, noting that PPIC is investigating “the different ways to pay for solar so that it’s not coming at the expense of the coffers of a poor rural county.” 

There are other practicalities to consider. In Kern County, one of the largest in the valley, transmission capacity is a limiting factor, says Oviatt. Kern County has already developed 50,000 acres of solar, mostly on marginal lands. “We are now catching up with all of the solar that we have,” she says. Without additional transmission lines, farmers will not be able to sell their land to renewable energy developers. Kern County is therefore looking at other possible uses for retired agricultural land, including carbon capture and sequestration technologies.  

Path Forward 

Both dual-use and conventional solar development on farmland hold promise for helping individual states and the United States as a whole meet aggressive renewable energy goals. Solar on farmland cuts greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector and, when done right, can help conserve land and protect biodiversity and water resources. Jeremy McDiarmid, vice president of the New England Clean Energy Council, points out that solar can be an impermanent development strategy, unlike housing or commercial real estate. What communities need to do, he says, is “find the balance between preserving open space and developing clean energy resources that are going to . . . create local jobs and help meet climate targets.” 

American Farmland Trust is crafting a set of principles to guide siting of renewable energy on farmland in a way that protects farmers and, where farmland is still active, improves viability and productivity. Those principles also recommend making full use of locations like brownfields, abandoned mines, and urban rooftops. “There are plenty of options out there with limited land impacts,” says Haight. “However, we’re also aware that we will not be able to site everything on brownfields and within the built environment.” 

Cole sees an opportunity for engaging in conversations state by state to identify where the best farmland is, what agricultural communities’ needs are, and what each state’s solar and land protection goals are to develop state-specific guidelines and programs. 

Such conversations are just beginning in California, Massachusetts, and New York. In California, the Strategic Growth Council, a state agency, is funding PPIC’s climate-smart agricultural transition and solar research to help plan the San Joaquin Valley’s future. In Massachusetts, the Department of Energy Resources is studying the solar potential for the Commonwealth and will likely layer in both technical feasibility and competing land uses for biodiversity and open space protections, according to McDiarmid. And in New York State, Cornell Professor Max Zhang said his recent study on strategic land use analysis for solar energy development precipitated a meeting with state senators (Katkar et al. 2021). 

Meanwhile, Levitt thinks the agricultural sector could see additional disruptions in the next few decades. Severe water shortages in arid and semi-arid landscapes are one potential driver of change. The traditional dairy and meat industries could also be increasingly displaced by alternative products such as nut milks and synthetic meats. Such disruption could free up a substantial amount of land for regenerative farming, renewables development, carbon sequestration, aquifer recharging, and wildlife protection, particularly in the swath of the middle of the country that’s now used for pasturing livestock and growing the crops that feed them.  

“Just as change in the pattern of land use in California is emerging, these trends could alter longstanding patterns of land use across North America,” says Levitt. While powerful industrial agriculture associations will do what it takes to minimize disruption—as will states where agriculture is integral to identity, culture, and economics—Levitt says the potential for dramatic change is there, and the forces driving change may well intensify over time. 

As dual-use systems get up and running on Knowlton Farm and elsewhere, questions remain about how scalable dual-use solar will be across different geographies and farm systems. Scaling up conventional solar on retired farmland is more straightforward, but will likely be limited by such factors as local transmission capacity or economic incentives. Regardless, solar energy development on both working and non-working farmland is an important tool for confronting the climate crisis. The faster the solar industry can perfect systems that keep farmers on their land and agricultural production intact—or optimized for water sustainability—the better humanity’s chances for preserving a livable planet. 

Meg Wilcox is an environmental journalist covering climate change, environmental health, and sustainable food systems. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Next City, Smithsonian, Salon, Eater, Civil Eats, and other outlets. 

Lead image: Solar consultant Iain Ward stands among the agrivoltaic panels at Knowlton Farm in Grafton, Massachusetts. Credit: Meg Wilcox. 

References

Barron-Gafford, Greg A., Mitchell A. Pavao-Zuckerman, Rebecca L. Minor, Leland F. Sutter, Isaiah Barnett-Moreno, Daniel T. Blackett, Moses Thompson, Kirk Dimond, Andrea K. Gerlak, Gary P. Nabhan, and Jordan E. Macknick. 2019. “Agrivoltaics Provide Mutual Benefits Across the Food-Energy-Water Nexus in Drylands.” Nature Sustainability 2: 848–855. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0364-5. 

Katkar, Venktesh V., Jeffrey A. Sward, Alex Worsley, and K. Max Zhang. 2021. “Strategic Land Use Analysis for Solar Energy Development in New York State.” Renewable Energy 173: 861–875. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148121004900. 

Larson, Eric, Chris Greig, Jesse Jenkins, Erin Mayfield, Andrew Pascale, Chuan Zhang, Joshua Drossman, Robert Williams, Steve Pacala, and Robert Socolow. 2020. “Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts.” Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University. December 15. https://netzeroamerica.princeton.edu/img/Princeton_NZA_Interim_Report_15_Dec_2020_FINAL.pdf. 

Sandler, Hilary, Giverson Mupambi, and Peter Jeranyama. 2019. “Expectations for Cranberry Growth and Productivity Under Solar (Photovoltaic) Panels.” East Wareham, MA: UMass Cranberry Station. May. https://ag.umass.edu/sites/ag.umass.edu/files/pdf-doc-ppt/shading_and_solar_panels_may_2019.pdf. 

Sekiyama, Takashi, and Akira Nagashima. 2019. “Solar Sharing for Both Food and Clean Energy Production: Performance of Agrivoltaic Systems for Corn, a Typical Shade-Intolerant Crop.” Environments 6(6): 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/environments6060065. 

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After a year of intensifying drought, fires, and floods, leaders of the conservation movement are tapping into widespread concern about climate change by emphasizing that forests, grasslands, parks, and peat bogs play a critical role in both soaking up carbon and building resilience. 

Last fall, scientists at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) released a list of forests from Washington to Georgia that, if properly protected, could help remove millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Around the same time, a coalition of conservation groups and sustainable business organizations called US Nature4Climate launched a campaign under the banner, “Conservation IS Climate Action.” A few days after that, Cities4Forests, a group of 73 cities committed to forest conservation and restoration, issued a call to action urging urban leaders to embrace nature-based climate solutions. 

With the existential threat of climate change vaulting to the top of the hierarchy of global problems, conservationists are increasingly emphasizing the critical role of land, from rural forests to working landscapes to urban street trees, in confronting that challenge. Significant ongoing work to protect land and preserve biodiversity falls under the rubric of natural climate solutions, defined by TNC as “conservation, restoration, and improved land management actions that increase carbon storage or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in landscapes and wetlands across the globe.” 

“There’s nothing better for keeping carbon in the ground and extracting more carbon out of the air than simply protecting forests,” said Mark Anderson, director of TNC’s Center for Resilient Conservation Science, which recently added carbon storage to the searchable criteria in its popular online Resilient Land Mapping Tool. “Our most important partner is the living land.” 

Land conservation can have multiple benefits of critical value in this era, said Jim Levitt, director of the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN). In addition to carbon sequestration, “conserved coastlines can buffer us from sea-level rise. Vibrant tree growth in cities can mitigate heat-island effects. Farms with vegetative buffers can substantially reduce water pollution. Protected highlands can provide clean water to dense urban centers,” said Levitt, who coauthored a forthcoming Policy Focus Report about civic conservation groups providing climate solutions. “The list goes on.” 

Conservation got special attention at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, when leaders of more than 140 nations pledged to end deforestation and land degradation by 2030, expanding a commitment made by 39 nations in 2014. The Glasgow pledge followed a commitment by 50 countries to protect 30 percent of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030. The Biden administration’s commitment to the 30×30 campaign, America the Beautiful, will strive to protect over 720 million acres during the coming decade, in part to address “the need to fight climate change with the natural solutions that our forests, agricultural lands, and the ocean provide.” 

Land is not a panacea for climate change, which is a crisis that will need to be actively addressed by many sectors. But the climate advantages of preserving land are “irrefutable,” says Anderson, who is the Lincoln Institute’s current Kingsbury Browne fellow. It’s a connection that also has emotional resonance: a recent newsletter from the Land Trust Alliance (LTA), which represents more than 1,000 land trusts and affiliates across the country, suggested land was “the answer to climate despair.” 

For Fernando Lloveras San Miguel, executive director of the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico and a former Kingsbury Browne fellow, this moment for land conservation represents a kind of coming full circle. “Climate change is the result of a lack of land conservation,” he said, pinning the global crisis on rapacious consumption and unsustainable land development practices that have ignored the functionality of ecosystems. His message: “Don’t destroy the basic systems that support life.” 

Those systems are particularly well-suited to help in the fight against climate change. Recent studies suggest that forest, grassland, and peatland ecosystems may be even more exceptional at soaking up and storing carbon than previously understood—both aboveground and underground. They can create microclimates that fend off warming temperature trends and even adapt to serve the needs of animals, modifying habitats as wildlife species, by necessity, revise their own specifications for survival to make it through all the climate upheaval. In a warming world where terrifying feedback loops are becoming commonplace, the healthy ecosystem—carefully protected and sustainably managed—promotes a virtuous cycle of biodiversity, a kind of continually improving and more efficient functionality. 

The obvious benefits of protecting land stand in sharp contrast to what has been happening, literally, on the ground. Deforestation continues apace as land is cleared for development or agriculture, or ravaged by wildfire, drought, and mudslide-inducing floods. That destruction leads to negative outcomes, simultaneously eliminating vast carbon sinks and spewing new emissions into the atmosphere. Fires release embodied carbon in vegetation and soil, and then emissions intensive development and agriculture—including methane from cows on any land cleared for grazing—is ushered in. So it was that in 2021, the Amazon rainforest started emitting more CO₂ than it absorbs. 

Similar patterns are emerging around the globe, including in the northeastern United States. Clark University researchers found that the six New England states and New York are collectively releasing an estimated 4.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere each year through forest loss. The loss of carbon storage power means the region is missing out on 1.2 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent (CO2e) in carbon sequestration each year. 

“Deforestation is a direct source of carbon emissions, releasing the carbon stored in trees and roots into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. It also negates one of the best tools we have for drawing carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere,” wrote the Clark research team. “Thus, slowing the pace of forest loss is an important instrument in the fight against climate change.” 

The climate mitigating power of land is so great, economists and others argue that the value of natural ecosystems should be integrated into the global economy—to put a price tag on the climate benefits of land. This perspective was spelled out most recently in the Independent Review on the Economics of Biodiversity led by Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor of economics at Cambridge and fellow of St John’s College. 

In the report, which some characterized as the land-oriented equivalent of Sir Nicholas Stern’s watershed 2006 report about the high costs of inaction on climate, Dasgupta identifies nature as “our most precious asset,” one that humanity has badly mismanaged. “My overarching aim is the reconstruction of economics to include nature as an ingredient,” he said. 

Land’s role in the climate crisis does have its limits, some say. “There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions, and there never will be,” writes Bonnie Waring, an ecologist at Imperial College London. “If we absolutely maximized the amount of vegetation all land on Earth could hold, we’d sequester enough carbon to offset about ten years of greenhouse gas emissions at current rates. After that, there could be no further increase in carbon capture.” 

Planting and protecting trees is valuable, climate activists say, but shouldn’t distract from other major steps necessary to meaningful climate progress: reducing emissions in the transportation, building, and energy sectors; and decarbonizing the economy by ending government fossil-fuel subsidies and support from private financial institutions. 

As the climate crisis gains speed, conservationists must also contend with emerging issues. Investors and real estate speculators are making huge acquisitions of land on higher ground that will be more productive given warmer temperatures and new rainfall patterns. And a debate has erupted over land-based carbon offsets, which allow polluters to counter their emissions by paying for greenhouse gases to be removed from the atmosphere somewhere else. Critics say the credits let polluters off the hook, allowing them to continue to emit greenhouse gases while they support sequestration functions that would be happening in protected areas either way. It should not surprise that land’s role in climate change would be as complex as the problem itself. 

Land Conservation and the Lincoln Institute 

Conservation became part of the Lincoln Institute’s portfolio through research on the taxation and assessment of land. In 1976, federal law began allowing tax deductions for gifts of conservation easements—donations of development rights on property that remained in private ownership. But the legislation that recognized this new instrument did not address the property tax consequences of easements, and assessors were unsure about how to value property that had a new legal status but unchanged physical characteristics. The Lincoln Institute, responding to requests for help from environmental groups and assessors, developed courses on this interplay of easements and the property tax. 

During the 1980s, the organization’s interest in land stewardship grew, with staff and study groups dedicated to the topic. In 1981, a Boston attorney on sabbatical to study voluntary conservation, Kingsbury Browne, organized a national convening at the Lincoln Institute’s headquarters. The participants, affiliated with some 40 land trusts and related groups from Maine to California, resolved to form a national Land Trust Exchange, which became the Land Trust Alliance (LTA). Now a significant catalyst for conservation, LTA has 1,000-plus member organizations and affiliates that have protected 61 million acres nationwide. Browne’s legacy lives on eponymously in an annual award from LTA and a Lincoln Institute fellowship.  

Today, the Lincoln Institute has identified “sustainably managed land and water resources” as one of its six primary goals. The International Land Conservation Network, launched in 2014, builds capacity for conservation around the world; the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, launched in 2017, promotes the integration of land and water planning, primarily in the U.S. West. 

“You can’t mitigate climate change without the land sector,” says Andrew Bowman, president of the LTA. Bowman said most of the group’s members are considering climate change prominently in their stewardship practices, land management, and restoration activities. But it’s not the only thing shaping today’s conservation actions: “We have interconnected crises of climate, biodiversity, and equity.” 

Add public health to that mix. The pandemic underscored the need to better understand biodiversity, habitat loss, and the interaction of humans and wildlife. “Restoring and protecting nature,” observed a National Science Foundation research announcement, “is essential to preventing future pandemics.” 

It could also be essential to surviving them. “Land conservation and restoration is critical to addressing the climate crisis, but is also central to the health of our communities—along that whole spectrum from urban parks to remote wildlands,” said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society and the 2009 Kingsbury Browne fellow. “The pandemic has shown just how central time in nature is to our resiliency, emotional, physical, and mental health. Studies bear that out, so a big focus of ours has been on creating greater park equity in urban areas and securing equitable access to the outdoors.” 

Equity is a critical part of the current conservation-climate conversation. By drawing attention to their role in the coalescing worldwide campaign to address climate change, conservation leaders can create a bigger tent, diversifying their ranks and reaching people who might not otherwise make the link between climate and land. An increasingly intentional focus on climate equity, borne out in campaigns for equitable access to urban parks, partnerships with sovereign tribal nations, and the like, has the potential to further expand the movement’s reach and impact. 

Climate and Conservation Facts 

Total tons of carbon dioxide emitted by humans each year: 11 billion 

Amount from burning fossil fuels: 9.5 billion 

Amount from deforestation: 1.5 billion 

Percent of human-produced carbon dioxide absorbed by land and water: 50 

Percent by which human-produced carbon dioxide has increased since 1750: 50 

Metric tons of carbon dioxide a typical 1,000-acre forest in the eastern United States can soak up each year: 180 

Acres of land protected by civic conservation in the United States: 61 million 

Percent of oceans legally protected, globally: 7 

Percent of land legally protected, globally: 15 

Percent of land and oceans the world is working to protect by 2030: 30 

Sources: Climate.gov, The Nature Conservancy, Land Trust Alliance, International Union for Conservation of Nature. 

Indigenous communities, in particular, are at the ready with creative, nature-based solutions. Some 50 tribes in the United States have developed far-reaching, nature-based climate action plans on indigenous lands across the country, including activities from coastal restoration to prescribed burns. Tribes are “using traditional knowledge, but taking advantage of the science and the data,” said Nikki Cooley, co-manager of the Tribes and Climate Change Program for the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals in Flagstaff, Arizona. The approach reflects the cultural perspective of indigenous nations, she said, “that they have a responsibility to the Earth, a relationship with the Earth . . . connecting people to the land.” 

In Gowanus, Brooklyn, urban landscape architects find themselves in common cause with traditional conservation organizations as they work together to protect biodiversity and build climate resilience in densely developed urban corridors. “Networks of green infrastructure in cities create a refuge for wildlife,” said Susannah Drake, adjunct professor at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. “Dark skies, greenbelts, and adapted right of way corridors link [rural areas] with urban centers.” 

The linkages, she said, “revive the large landscape productivity of regions . . . . If we can’t take all the land back [for conservation], we know enough about landscape ecology to make the urban-suburban-rural transect embody greater biodiversity.” 

On an even broader scale, the Biden administration’s America the Beautiful program “presents an enormous opportunity to bring the climate and conservation agendas into better alignment, if not explicitly link them,” said Sacha Spector, program director for the Environment at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, who noted the existence of a longstanding division between conservation and climate funders, even within the same foundations. “That means engaging all sorts of potential stakeholders and funders in this more holistic understanding of land conservation and stewardship, from urban reforestation and greenspace advocates to the big climate funders, to health and resilience interests. For both biodiversity and climate, this is an all-hands-on-deck moment.” 

In 2019, as part of an effort to bolster support for the 30×30 campaign, the Center for American Progress issued a report on the state of America’s natural areas. The report suggested that the question of how much nature to keep—in an effort to “curb wildlife extinctions, fight climate change, reduce toxic pollution, and safeguard healthy natural systems upon which future generations will depend”—should be the subject of an urgent national conversation. 

“There can be no single or simple answer to a question that is simultaneously moral, economic, religious, historical, cultural, scientific, and, for many people, deeply personal,” says the report. “A discussion of how much nature to protect—and how, where, and for whom—must honor and account for the perspectives of all people, including communities that are disproportionately affected by the degradation of natural systems; communities that do not have equal access to the outdoors; tribal nations whose sovereign rights over lands, waters, and wildlife should be finally and fully upheld; communities of color; and others.” It’s been only two years since the report was issued, but that discussion has taken on even greater urgency in the face of the global pandemic, widespread calls for addressing racial injustice, and the increasingly visible effects of climate change.  

Ultimately, climate and biodiversity are “braided together,” says Levitt. Addressing climate change in a meaningful way requires understanding those connections—and understanding our own role in the nature of things. 

“Forests are . . . the unknowably complex green webs that bind together the fates of millions of known species, with millions more still waiting to be discovered,” writes Waring, the ecology professor at Imperial College. “To survive and thrive in a future of dramatic global change, we will have to respect that tangled web and our place in it.” 

 
Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor to Land Lines. 

Image: Indonesia peatland. Credit: Rifky/CIFOR via Flickr.