Global urbanization benefits food security and nature restoration

Abstract Urbanization has been considered as an antagonist to food security and nature restoration due to land-taking by urban expansion. However, if urbanization was undertaken with a focus on integrated urban–rural development, it could in face release land areas globally. Here show that domestic rural-to-urban migration with urbanization can support a global population with 2 billion more people, while requiring 49 million hectares of less built-up lands due to higher population density in urban relative to rural areas, over the period from 2020 to 2050. If no urbanization would occur, currently predicted growth trends in global population would require an additional 46 million hectares of lands. If cross-countries rural-to-urban migration is supported, land release could be increased up to 67 million hectares. This amount could satisfy 51% of global cropland demand in 2050, and as an additional benefit, reduce cropland fragmentation. If the land areas released were set aside for nature restoration, 4,488 more species could be protected. As a further co-benefit, additional carbon sequestration of 15 billion tonnes could be achieved over the period from 2020 to 2050. Policies to promote cross-countries rural-to-urban migration and management of released lands would help to benefits food security and natural restoration.