Geospatial Model

27%

Decrease in the amount of prime farmland due to climate change on tribal lands in the region.

Climate change can make it harder for agricultural crops to grow in certain locations where they once thrived. As climate change accelerates, the amount of land that is suitable for agricultural production can decrease.

To understand how this can impact tribal lands in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, we created a geospatial model that represents climatic conditions in two different time periods:

past (1970-2000) and future (2021-2040).

Within these time periods, we looked at how much land could support agricultural crop production. We broke this down into 5 land suitability categories:

1) prime, 2) high, 3) moderate, 4) low, and

5) marginal.

A full description of this model is presented here.

36%

Decrease in the number of crop species that can be produced on tribal lands in the region, as a result of climate change.

The maps on the right show the location of suitable agricultural lands in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina under past (1970-2000) and near-future (2021-2040) climate conditions.

Each panel shows the potential land area for 5 suitability categories:

A) marginal, B) low, C) moderate, D), high, and E) prime.

This shows that the amount of prime farmland is expected to decrease under future climate conditions.

Under past and near-future climate conditions, approximately half of all tribal land in the region had a suitability score of 0.9, which means that it was highly suitable for agriculture.

Under past climate conditions, 45% of tribal land was considered prime (suitability score of 1.0). This decreased to 32% under future climate conditions.

Under past climate conditions, over 60% of land was considered prime for fruit production; for grains 60%; and for dark green vegetables, 35%.

Under near-future climate conditions, over 80% of land was considered prime for grains, 45% for fruit, and less than 5% for all other crops.