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This data publication offers updated data about low-carbon energy technology (LCET) patents and citations links to the scientific literature. Compared to a [previous version](https://doi.org/10.4119/unibi/2941555), it also contains data on biofuels and fuels from waste technologies. The updated version also contains the code (R-scripts) that have been used to (1) compile the data and (2) to reproduce the statistical analysis including figures and tables presented in the final paper Hötte, Pichler, Lafond (2021): "The rise of science in low-carbon energy technologies", RSER. DOI: [10.1016/j.rser.2020.110654](10.1016/j.rser.2020.110654). This data publication contains different data sets (in .RData and (long-term archivable) .tsv format). Further information about each data set is provided in more detail below. - "all_papers.RData" : Data on scientific papers from Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), 3 columns: Paper ID, Paper year, cited (binary 0-1, indicates whether the paper is cited by a patent). - "all_patents.RData" : Data on USPTO utility patents, 6 columns: Patent number, Patent year (grant year), CPC class, Patent date, Patent title, citing_to_science (binary 0-1, indicates whether the patent is citing to science). - "LCET_patents.RData" : Subset of LCET patents, 6 columns: Patent number, Patent year (grant year), Technology type, CPC class, Patent date, Patent title. - "LCET_patent_citations.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to other patents, 2 columns: citing, cited (Patent numbers). - "LCET_subset_with_metainfo_final.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to scientific papers from MAG, complemented by meta-information on patents and papers, 18 columns: Patent number, Paper ID, Patent year, Paper year, Technology type, WoS field, Patent title, Paper title, DOI, Confidence Score, Citation type, Reference type, Journal/ Conf. name, Journal ID, Conference ID, CPC class, Patent date, US patent. - "patent:citations.RData": Patent citations among all patents (not only LCET), 2 columns: citing, cited (Patent numbers). Moreover, this data publication contains a folder "code" with 2 subfolders: - "R_code_create_data" contains the R-scripts used to create the data sample. - "R_code_plots_and_figures" contains all R-scripts used to make the statistical analyses presented in the text (including figures and tables). Please check the read-me documents in the code folder for further detail. ### License and terms of use ### This data is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Please find the full license text below. If you want to use the data, do not forget to give appropriate credit by citing this article: Kerstin Hötte, Anton Pichler, François Lafond, The rise of science in low-carbon energy technologies, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 139, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110654 ### LCET definition and concepts ### LCET are defined by Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes. CPC offers "tags" that are assigned to patents that are useful for the adaptation and mitigation of climate chagen. LCET are identified by YO2E codes, i.e. that are assigned to technologies that contribute to the "REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GAS [GHG] EMISSIONS, RELATED TO ENERGY GENERATION, TRANSMISSION OR DISTRIBUTION". Only the subset of Y02E01 ("Energy generation through renewable energy sources"), Y02E03 ("Energy generation of nuclear origin") and Y02E5 ("Technologies for the production of fuel of non-fossil origin") technologies are used. 10 different LCET are distinguished: Solar PV, Wind, Solar thermal, Ocean power, Hydroelectric, Geothermal, Biofuels, Fuels from waste, Nuclear fission and Nuclear fusion. More information about the Y02-tags can be found in: Veefkind, Victor, et al. "A new EPO classification scheme for climate change mitigation technologies." World Patent Information 34.2 (2012): 106-111. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2011.12.004](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2011.12.004) ### Data sources and compilation ### The data was generated by the merge of different data sets. 1.) Patent data from USPTO was downloaded here: https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/ 2.) Complementary data on grant year and patent title was taken from: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/google-patents-public-datasets-connecting-public-paid-and-private-patent-data 3.) Citations to science come from the Reliance on Science (RoS) data set https://zenodo.org/record/3685972 (v23, Feb. 24, 2020) DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3685972 The directory ("code") offers the R-scripts that were used to process MAG data and to link it to patent data. The header of the R-scripts offer additional technical information about the subsetting procedures and data retrieval. For more information about the patent data, see: Pichler, A., Lafond, F. & J, F. D. (2020), Technological interdependencies predict innovation dynamics, Working paper pp. 1–33. URL: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.00580](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.00580) For more information about MAG data, see: Marx, Matt, and Aaron Fuegi. "Reliance on science: Worldwide front‐page patent citations to scientific articles." Strategic Management Journal 41.9 (2020): 1572-1594. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3145](https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3145) Marx, Matt and Fuegi, Aaron, Reliance on Science: Worldwide Front-Page Patent Citations to Scientific Articles. Boston University Questrom School of Business Research Paper No. 3331686. DOI: [http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3331686 ](http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3331686 ) ### Detailed information about the data ### - "all_papers.RData" : Data on scientific papers from Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), 3 columns: Paper ID: Unique paper-identifier used by MAG Paper year: Year of publication cited: binary 0-1, indicates whether the paper is cited by a patent, citation links are made in the text body and front-page of the patent, and added by examiners and applicants. - "all_patents.RData" : Data on USPTO utility patents, 6 columns: Patent number: Number given by USPTO. Can be used for manual patent search in http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm (numeric) Patent year: Year when the patent was granted (numeric) CPC class: Detailed 8-digit CPC code (numeric) Patent date: Exact date of patent granting (numeric) Patent title: Short title (character) citing_to_science: binary 0-1, indicates whether the patent is citing to science as identified by citation links in RoS. (numeric) - "LCET_patents.RData" : Subset of LCET patents, 6 columns: Patent number: (numeric) Patent year: (numeric) Technology type: Short code used to tag 10 different types of LCET (pv, (nuclear) fission, (solar) thermal, (nuclear) fusion, wind, geo(termal), sea (ocean power), hydro, biofuels, (fuels from) waste) (character) CPC class: Detailed 8-digit CPC code (character) Patent date: (numeric) Patent title: (numeric) - "LCET_patent_citations.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to other patents, 2 columns: citing: Number of citing patent (numeric) cited: Number of cited patent (numeric) - "LCET_subset_with_metainfo_final.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to scientific papers from MAG, complemented by meta-information on patents and papers, 18 columns: Patent number: see above (numeric) Paper ID: see above (numeric) Patent year: see above (numeric) Paper year: see above (numeric) Technology type: see above (character) WoS field: Web of Science field of research, WoS fields were probabilistically assigned to papers and are used as given by RoS (character) Patent title: see above (character) Paper title: Title of scientific article (character) DOI: Paper DOI if available (character) Confidence Score: Reliability score of citation link (numeric). Links were probabilistically assigned. See Marx and Fuegi 2019 for further detail. Citation type: Indicates whether citation made in text body of patent document or its front page (character) Reference type: Examiner or applicant added citation link (or unknown). (character) Journal/ Conf. name: Name of journal or conference proceeding where the cited paper was published (character) Journal ID: Journal identifier in MAG (numeric) Conference ID: Conference identifier in MAG (numeric) CPC class: see above (character) Patent date: see above (numeric) US patent: binary US-patent indicator as provided by RoS (numeric) - "patent:citations.RData": Patent citations among all patents (not only LCET), 2 columns: citing: Number of citing patent (numeric) cited: Number of cited patent (numeric) **Note:** The citation links were probabilistically retrieved. During the analysis, we identified manually some false-positives are removed them from the "LCET_subset_with_metainfo_final.RData" data set. The list is available, too: "list_of_false_positives.tsv" We do not claim to have a perfect coverage, but expect a precision of >98% as described by Marx and Fuegi 2019. ### Statistics about the data ### Full data set: - #papers in MAG: 179,083,029 - #all patents: 10,160,667 - #citing patents: 2,058,233 - #cited papers: 4,404,088 - #citation links from patents to papers: 34,959,193 LCET subset: - #LCET patents: 65,305 - #citing LCET patents: 22,017 - #cited papers: 103,645 - #citation links from LCET patents to papers: 396,504 Meta-information: Papers: - Publication year, 251 Web-of-Science (WoS) categories, Journal/ conference proceedings name, DOI, Paper title Patents: - Grant year, >240,000 hierarchical CPC classes, 10 LCET types Citation links: - Reference type, citation type, reliability score If you have further questions about the data or suggestions, please contact: **kerstin.hotte@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk** ### Acknowledgements ### The authors want to thank the Center for Research Data Management of Bielefeld University and in particular Cord Wiljes for excellent support. ### License issues ### Terms of use of the source data: - Reliance on Science data [https://zenodo.org/record/3685972](https://zenodo.org/record/3685972), Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0, https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/ - "Google Patents Public Data” by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services and Google (https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/google-patents-public-datasets-connecting-public-paid-and-private-patent-data), Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/google_patents_public_datasets/google-patents-public-data - USPTO patent data (https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/), see: https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/data/2020TermsConditions.docx

#### Note: #### An updated version of these data including data on biofuels and fuels from waste is available [here](https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/2950291). The extended version also offers a package of R-scripts that have been used to reproduce the statistical analysis presented in [Hötte, Pichler, Lafond (2021): The rise of science in low-carbon energy technologies](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110654). This data publication offers data about low-carbon energy technology (LCET) patents and citations links to the scientific literature. This data publication contains different data sets (in .RData and (long-term archivable) .tsv format). Further information about each data set is provided in more detail below. - "all_papers.RData" : Data on scientific papers from Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), 3 columns: Paper ID, Paper year, cited (binary 0-1, indicates whether the paper is cited by a patent). - "all_patents.RData" : Data on USPTO utility patents, 6 columns: Patent number, Patent year (grant year), CPC class, Patent date, Patent title, citing_to_science (binary 0-1, indicates whether the patent is citing to science). - "LCET_patents.RData" : Subset of LCET patents, 6 columns: Patent number, Patent year (grant year), Technology type, CPC class, Patent date, Patent title. - "LCET_patent_citations.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to other patents, 2 columns: citing, cited (Patent numbers). - "LCET_subset_with_metainfo_final.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to scientific papers from MAG, complemented by meta-information on patents and papers, 18 columns: Patent number, Paper ID, Patent year, Paper year, Technology type, WoS field, Patent title, Paper title, DOI, Confidence Score, Citation type, Reference type, Journal/ Conf. name, Journal ID, Conference ID, CPC class, Patent date, US patent. ### License and terms of use ### This data is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license. See: [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode) Please find the full license text below. If you want to use the data, do not forget to give appropriate credit by citing this data publication and the following paper. Kerstin Hötte, Anton Pichler, François Lafond: *The rise of science in low-carbon energy technologies*, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 139, 2021 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110654](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110654) ### LCET definition and concepts ### LCET are defined by Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes. CPC offers "tags" that are assigned to patents that are useful for the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. LCET are identified by YO2E codes, i.e. that are assigned to technologies that contribute to the "REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GAS [GHG] EMISSIONS, RELATED TO ENERGY GENERATION, TRANSMISSION OR DISTRIBUTION". Only the subset of Y02E01 ("Energy generation through renewable energy sources") and Y02E03 ("Energy generation of nuclear origin") technologies are used. 8 different LCET are distinguished: Solar PV, Wind, Solar thermal, Ocean power, Hydroelectric, Geothermal, Nuclear fission and Nuclear fusion. More information about the Y02-tags can be found in: Veefkind, Victor, et al. "A new EPO classification scheme for climate change mitigation technologies." World Patent Information 34.2 (2012): 106-111. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2011.12.004](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2011.12.004) ### Data sources and compilation ### The data was generated by the merge of different data sets. 1.) Patent data from USPTO was downloaded here: https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/ 2.) Complementary data on grant year and patent title was taken from: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/google-patents-public-datasets-connecting-public-paid-and-private-patent-data 3.) Citations to science come from the Reliance on Science (RoS) data set https://zenodo.org/record/3685972 (v23, Feb. 24, 2020) DOI: [10.5281/zenodo.3685972](10.5281/zenodo.3685972) The directory ("code") offers the R-scripts that were used to process MAG data and to link it to patent data. The header of the R-scripts offer additional technical information about the subsetting procedures and data retrieval. For more information about the patent data, see: Pichler, A., Lafond, F. & J, F. D. (2020), Technological interdependencies predict innovation dynamics, Working paper pp. 1–33. URL: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.00580](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.00580) For more information about MAG data, see: Marx, Matt, and Aaron Fuegi. "Reliance on science: Worldwide front‐page patent citations to scientific articles." Strategic Management Journal 41.9 (2020): 1572-1594. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3145](https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3145) Marx, Matt and Fuegi, Aaron, Reliance on Science: Worldwide Front-Page Patent Citations to Scientific Articles. Boston University Questrom School of Business Research Paper No. 3331686. DOI: [http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3331686 ](http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3331686 ) ### Detailed information about the data ### - "all_papers.RData" : Data on scientific papers from Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), 3 columns: Paper ID: Unique paper-identifier used by MAG Paper year: Year of publication cited: binary 0-1, indicates whether the paper is cited by a patent, citation links are made in the text body and front-page of the patent, and added by examiners and applicants. - "all_patents.RData" : Data on USPTO utility patents, 6 columns: Patent number: Number given by USPTO. Can be used for manual patent search in http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm (numeric) Patent year: Year when the patent was granted (numeric) CPC class: Detailed 8-digit CPC code (numeric) Patent date: Exact date of patent granting (numeric) Patent title: Short title (character) citing_to_science: binary 0-1, indicates whether the patent is citing to science as identified by citation links in RoS. (numeric) - "LCET_patents.RData" : Subset of LCET patents, 6 columns: Patent number: (numeric) Patent year: (numeric) Technology type: Short code used to tag 8 different types of LCET (pv, (nuclear) fission, (solar) thermal, (nuclear) fusion, wind, geo(termal), sea (ocean power), hydro) (character) CPC class: Detailed 8-digit CPC code (character) Patent date: (numeric) Patent title: (numeric) - "LCET_patent_citations.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to other patents, 2 columns: citing: Number of citing patent (numeric) cited: Number of cited patent (numeric) - "LCET_subset_with_metainfo_final.RData" : Citations from LCET patents to scientific papers from MAG, complemented by meta-information on patents and papers, 18 columns: Patent number: see above (numeric) Paper ID: see above (numeric) Patent year: see above (numeric) Paper year: see above (numeric) Technology type: see above (character) WoS field: Web of Science field of research, WoS fiels were probabilistically assigned to papers and are used as given by RoS (character) Patent title: see above (character) Paper title: Title of scientific article (character) DOI: Paper DOI if available (character) Confidence Score: Reliability score of citation link (numeric). Links were probabilistically assiged. See Marx and Fuegi 2019 for further detail. Citation type: Indicates whether citation made in text body of patent document or its front page (character) Reference type: Examiner or applicant added citation link (or unknown). (character) Journal/ Conf. name: Name of journal or conference proceeding where the cited paper was published (character) Journal ID: Journal identifier in MAG (numeric) Conference ID: Conference identifier in MAG (numeric) CPC class: see above (character) Patent date: see above (numeric) US patent: binary US-patent indicator as provided by RoS (numeric) #### Note: #### The citation links were probabilistically retrieved. During the analysis, we identified manually some false-positives are removed them from the "LCET_subset_with_metainfo_final.RData" data set. The list is available, too: "list_of_false_positives.tsv" We do not claim to have a perfect coverage but expect a precision of >98% as described by Marx and Fuegi 2019. ### Statistics about the data ### Full data set: - Number of papers in MAG: 179,083,029 - Number of all patents: 10,160,667 - Number of citing patents: 2,058,233 - Number of cited papers: 4,404,088 - Number of citation links from patents to papers: 34,959,193 LCET subset: - Number of LCET patents: 57,530 - Number of citing LCET patents: 16,674 - Number of cited papers: 53,509 - Number of citation links from LCET patents to papers: 151,253 - Number of citation links from LCET patents to other patents: 567,274 Meta-information: Papers: - Publication year, 251 Web-of-Science (WoS) categories, Journal/ conference proceedings name, DOI, Paper title Patents: - Grant year, >250,000 hierarchical CPC classes, 8 LCET types Citation links: - Reference type, citation type, reliability score #### If you have further questions about the data or suggestions, please contact: kerstin.hotte@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk ### License issues ### Terms of use of the source data: - Reliance on Science data [https://zenodo.org/record/3685972](https://zenodo.org/record/3685972), Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0, https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/ - "Google Patents Public Data” by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services and Google (https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/google-patents-public-datasets-connecting-public-paid-and-private-patent-data), Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/google_patents_public_datasets/google-patents-public-data - USPTO patent data (https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/), see: https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/data/2020TermsConditions.docx

Comprehensive and reliable information on anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gas emissions is required to track progress towards keeping warming well below 2°C as agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. Here we provide a dataset on anthropogenic GHG emissions 1970-2019 with a broad country and sector coverage. We build the dataset from recent releases from the “Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research” (EDGAR) for CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industry (FFI), CH4 emissions, N2O emissions, and fluorinated gases and use a well-established fast-track method to extend this dataset from 2018 to 2019. We complement this with information on net CO2 emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) from three available bookkeeping models.

QTDIAN - Quantification of Technological DIffusion and sociAl constraiNts - is a toolbox of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of socio-technical and political aspects of the energy transition that influence the overall potential, the rate of energy-related technology and service diffusion and the design of the future energy system. The output of QTIDIAN is empirically founded datasets of social and political drivers and barriers of the transition, both in the form of raw data describing past and current developments and manipulated to constitute consistent quantifications of the storylines. Here you can download the data for six QTDIAN themes: Socially feasible scaling of energy technologies Policy preferences & dynamics Barriers to infrastructural development (wind energy, grid development) Citizen energy Private energy demand Further information on the QTDIAN modelling toolbox and the data can be found in the SENTINEL Deliverable 2.3 and Deliverable 2.4: S��sser, D., al Rakouki, H., & Lilliestam, J.(2021). The QTDIAN modelling toolbox���Quantification of social drivers and constraints of the diffusion of energy technologies. Deliverable 2.3. Sustainable Energy Transitions Laboratory (SENTINEL) project. Potsdam: Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS). S��sser, D., Pickering, B., Chatterjee, S., Oreggioni, G., Stavrakas, V., & Lilliestam, J.(2021). Integration of socio-technological transition constraints into energy demand and systems models. Deliverable 2.5. Sustainable Energy Transitions Laboratory (SENTINEL) project. Potsdam: Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS).

Avoiding irreversible climate change as effectively as possible is one of the most pressing challenges of society. Carbon pricing that is uniformly valid on a global and cross-sectoral basis represents a cost-efficient policy tool to meet this challenge. Carbon pricing allows external costs to be allocated or internalized on a polluter-pays principle. It is shown that a global emissions cap-and-trade system is the most suitable market-based instrument for reducing global emissions levels, in line with the temperature goal set by the Paris Agreement. A proposal for its design is presented in this paper. This instrument encourages worldwide measures, with the lowest marginal abatement cost, according to a pre-defined reduction path. Thereby, it ensures compliance with a specified remaining carbon budget to meet a certain temperature limit in a cost-efficient manner. Possible reduction paths are presented in this paper. Weaknesses in the design of existing emissions trading systems (ETS), such as the EU ETS, are identified and avoided in the proposed instrument. The framework solves several problems of today’s climate change policies, like the free rider problem, carbon leakage, rebound effects or the green paradox. The introduction of a global uniform carbon pricing instrument and its concrete design should be the subject of policy, especially at the United Nations climate change conferences, as soon as possible in order to allow for rapid implementation. If a global ETS with a uniform carbon price could be introduced, additional governmental regulations with regard to carbon emissions would become obsolete.

Given the global energy and environmental situation, the European Union has been issuing directives with increasingly demanding requirements in term of the energy efficiency in buildings. The international competition of sustainable houses, Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE), is aligned with these European objectives. SDE houses are low energy solar buildings that must reach the near to zero energy houses’ goal. In the 2012 edition, in order to emphasize its significance, the Energy Efficiency Contest was added. SDE houses’ interior comfort, functioning and energy performance is monitored. The monitoring data can give an idea about the efficiency of the houses. However, a jury comprised by international experts is responsible for carrying out the houses energy efficiency evaluation. Passive strategies and houses services are analyzed. Additionally, the jury's assessment has been compared with the behavior of the houses during the monitoring period. Comparative studies make emphasis on the energy aspects, houses functioning and their interior comfort. Conclusions include thoughts related with the evaluation process, the results of the comparative studies and suggestions for the next competitions.

Integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) is a versatile technology emerging as an ecological and sustainable solution for traditional monoculture aquacultures in terms of effluent treatment. Nevertheless, IMTA is still poorly applied in aquaculture industry due to, among other reasons, the lack of effective, low-investment and low-maintenance solutions. In this study, one has developed a practical and low maintenance IMTA-pilot system, settled in a semi-intensive coastal aquaculture. The optimisation and performance of the system was validated using Ulva spp., a macroalgae that naturally grows in the fishponds of the local aquaculture. Several cultivation experiments were performed at lab-scale and in the IMTA-pilot system, in static mode. The specific growth rate (SGR), yield, nutrient removal, N and C enrichment, protein and pigment content were monitored. Ulva spp. successfully thrived in effluent from the fish species sea bream (Sparus aurata) and sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) production tanks and significantly reduced inorganic nutrient load in the effluent, particularly, NH4+, PO43− and NO3−. The enrichment of nitrogen in Ulva spp.’s tissues indicated nitrogen assimilation by the algae, though, the cultivated Ulva spp. showed lower amounts of protein and pigments in comparison to the wild type. This study indicates that the designed IMTA-pilot system is an efficient solution for fish effluent treatment and Ulva spp., a suitable effluent remediator.

Natural potentials for future cropland expansion The potential for the expansion of cropland is restricted by the availability of land resources and given local natural conditions. As a result, area that is highly suitable for agriculture according to the prevailing local biophysical conditions but is not under cultivation today has a high natural potential for expansion. Policy regulations can further restrict the availability of land for expansion by designating protected areas, although they may be suitable for agriculture. Conversely, by applying e.g. irrigation practices, land can be brought under cultivation, although it may naturally not be suitable. Here, we investigate the potentials for agricultural expansion for near future climate scenario conditions to identify the suitability of non-cropland areas for expansion according to their local natural conditions. We determine the available energy, water and nutrient supply for agricultural suitability from climate, soil and topography data, by using a fuzzy logic approach according to Zabel et al. (2014). It considers the 16 globally most important staple and energy crops. These are: barley, cassava, groundnut, maize, millet, oil palm, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, soy, sugarcane, sunflower, summer wheat, winter wheat. The parameterization of the membership functions that describe each of the crops’ specific natural requirements is taken from Sys et al. (1993). The considered natural conditions are: climate (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation), soil properties (texture, proportion of coarse fragments and gypsum, base saturation, pH content, organic carbon content, salinity, sodicity), and topography (elevation, slope). As a result of the fuzzy logic approach, values in a range between 0 and 1 describe the suitability of a crop for each of the prevailing natural conditions at a certain location. The smallest suitability value over all parameters finally determines the suitability of a crop. The daily climate data is provided by simulation results from the global climate model ECHAM5 (Jungclaus et al. 2006) for near future (2011-2040) SRES A1B climate scenario conditions. Soil data is taken from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) (FAO et al. 2012), and topography data is applied from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) (Farr et al. 2007). In order to gather a general crop suitability, which does not refer to one specific crop, the most suitable crop with the highest suitability value is chosen at each pixel. In addition the natural biophysical conditions, we consider today’s irrigated areas according to (Siebert et al. 2013). We assume that irrigated areas globally remain constant until 2040, since adequate data on the development of irrigated areas do not exist, although it is likely that freshwater availability for irrigation could be limited in some regions, while in other regions surplus water supply could be used to expand irrigation practices (Elliott et al. 2014). However, it is difficult to project where irrigation practices will evolve, since it is driven by economic investment costs that are required to establish irrigation infrastructure. In principle, all agriculturally suitable land that is not used as cropland today has the natural potential to be converted into cropland. We assume that only urban and built-up areas are not available for conversion, although more than 80% of global urban areas are agriculturally suitable (Avellan et al. 2012). However, it seems unlikely that urban areas will be cleared at the large scale due to high investment costs, growing cities and growing demand for settlements. Concepts of urban and vertical farming usually are discussed under the aspects of cultivating fresh vegetables and salads for urban population. They are not designed to extensively grow staple crops such as wheat or maize for feeding the world in the near future. Urban farming would require one third of the total global urban area to meet only the global vegetable consumption of urban dwellers (Martellozzo et al. 2015). Thus, urban agriculture cannot substantially contribute to global agricultural production of staple crops. Protected areas or dense forested areas are not excluded from the calculation, in order not to lose any information in the further combination with the biodiversity patterns (see chapter 2.3). We use data on current cropland distribution by Ramankutty et al. (2008) and urban and built-up area according to the ESA-CCI land use/cover dataset (ESA 2014). From this data, we calculate the ‘natural expansion potential index’ (Iexp) that expresses the natural potential for an area to be converted into cropland as follows: Iexp = S * Aav The index is determined by the quality of agricultural suitability (S) (values between 0 and 1) multiplied with the amount of available area (Aav) for conversion (in percentage of pixel area). The available area includes all suitable area that is not cultivated today, and not classified as urban or artificial area. The index ranges between 0 and 100 and indicates where the conditions for cropland expansion are more or less favorable, when taking only natural conditions into account, disregarding socio-economic factors, policies and regulations that drive or inhibit cropland expansion. The index is a helpful indicator for identifying areas where cropland expansion could take place in the near future. Further information Detailled information are available in the following publication: Delzeit, R., F. Zabel, C. Meyer and T. Václavík (2017). Addressing future trade-offs between biodiversity and cropland expansion to improve food security. Regional Environmental Change 17(5): 1429-1441. DOI: 10.1007/s10113-016-0927-1 Contact Please contact: Dr. Florian Zabel, f.zabel@lmu.de, Department für Geographie, LMU München (www.geografie.uni-muenchen.de) This research was carried out within the framework of the GLUES (Global Assessment of Land Use Dynamics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Ecosystem Services) Project, which has been supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) program on sustainable land management (grant number: 01LL0901E).