Attributing gridded land use change carbon emissions to crop and grass production from 2000 to 2020.

Food systems are responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and these emissions are predominantly driven by land-based and land-use change (LUC) emissions linked to agricultural production (Crippa, M. et al., 2021). Incorporating all sources of GHG emissions, including those from land-use change, is essential for fully assessing the sustainability of agricultural production and enabling informed decision-making. However, many studies either overlook LUC-related emissions, do not account for diverse land-use change scenarios, neglect to accurately differentiate the agricultural commodities driving the change, or focus on aggregated subnational scales (Halpern, B.S. et al., 2024; Singh, C., & Persson, 2022; Lam, W. Y. et al., 2021). Our research addresses these gaps by providing high-resolution (5 arc-minute), global-scale estimates of LUC emissions attributed to crop and livestock production from 2000 to 2020. We quantify LUC emissions and attribute them to specific crops and pasture established on newly converted lands, providing crop- and grass-specific carbon emission intensities, which represent the carbon emissions generated per ton of production. Additionally, our study integrates emissions resulting from new pasture areas into livestock GHG emission intensity data from previous research, providing a more detailed livestock emission assessment. This approach offers a comprehensive evaluation of the carbon footprint of crop and livestock production and reveals the spatial and temporal dynamics of LUC-related emissions, thus providing valuable insights into the environmental impact of agricultural expansion.