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How scalable is sustainable intensification?

Nature Plants volume 2, Article number: 16065 (2016) Cite this article

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Sustainable intensification is a concept of growing importance, yet it is in danger of becoming scientifically obsolete because of the diversity of meanings it has acquired. To avoid this, it is important to consider the various scales on which it can aid progress towards feeding human populations while also protecting the environment.

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Figure 1: The number of articles with titles or abstracts mentioning sustainable intensification published in social science journals and natural science journals up to the end of 2015.
Figure 2: Visions of SI plotted against the time frame and spatial extent (spatiotemporal scales) at which agricultural productivity and the delivery of other ecosystem services are assessed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Defra as part of the Sustainable Intensification Research Platform. Improvements to the manuscript were suggested by members of the SIP Science Conference 2016 and by B. Kunin, C. M. Jones, C. Marsh, Y. Gavish and D. Salgado.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Richard M. Gunton & Leslie G. Firbank

  2. Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK

    Alex Inman & D. Michael Winter

  3. Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4PJ, UK

    D. Michael Winter

Authors
  1. Richard M. Gunton
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  2. Leslie G. Firbank
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  3. Alex Inman
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  4. D. Michael Winter
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leslie G. Firbank.

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Gunton, R., Firbank, L., Inman, A. et al. How scalable is sustainable intensification?. Nature Plants 2, 16065 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.65

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