Paul West

Biographic Data

ID3864580
NAMEPaul West
GIVEN NAMESPaul
FAMILY NAMEWest
SIGNATUREWEST P
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Minnesota
ORCID0000-0001-9024-1657
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS26
TOTAL CITATIONS21
AUTHOR COUNT26
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1963
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX2

  • A people-first approach to achieving global climate and nature goals

    Open AccessPaul West, Yusuf Jameel et al.ARTICLEOne Earth2025

  • Research priorities for global food security under extreme events

    Open AccessZia Mehrabi, Ruth Delzeit et al.ARTICLEOne Earth2022

    Extreme events, such as those caused by climate change, economic or geopolitical shocks, and pest or disease epidemics, threaten global food security. The complexity of causation, as well as the myriad ways that an event, or a sequence of events, creates cascading and systemic impacts, poses significant challenges to food systems research and policy alike. To identify priority food security risks and research opportunities, we asked experts from …

  • Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system

    Open AccessMario Herrero, Philip K Thornton et al.ARTICLENature Food2020

  • Climate change has likely already affected global food production

    Open AccessD K Ray, Paul West et al.ARTICLEPLoS ONE2019

    Crop yields are projected to decrease under future climate conditions, and recent research suggests that yields have already been impacted. However, current impacts on a diversity of crops subnationally and implications for food security remains unclear. Here, we constructed linear regression relationships using weather and reported crop data to assess the potential impact of observed climate change on the yields of the top ten global crops-barle…

  • Redesigning Planning, Governance, and Policies to Achieve Multiple Sustainable Development Goals

    Open AccessPaul West, Paul C WestARTICLEOne Earth2019

  • Pathways for recent Cerrado soybean expansion: Extending the soy moratorium and implementing integrated crop livestock systems with soybeans

    Open AccessLucy S Nepstad, James Gerber et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    The Brazilian Soy Moratorium has effectively reduced forest conversion for soybeans in Amazonia. \nThis has come at the expense of the region’s pasturelands, which have increasingly ceded space for \ncompliant soy expansion. The question of extending the policy to the Cerrado, where recent soy \nexpansion has come at the cost of ecologically valuable vegetation, plugs into a wider discussion on \nhow to reconcile competing commodities on finite a…

  • The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity

    Open AccessNuala Fitton, Peter Alexander et al.ARTICLEGlobal Environmental Change2019Cited by: 8References: 5

    We examine risks to current agricultural land to future changes in water availability. • We present a multiple model inter-comparison of future land demand and water availability. • Eleven percent of croplands and ten percent of grasslands are at risk from declining water availability. • Changes in diet and waste reduction offer a buffer against land loss and food insecurity. Rapidly increasing populations coupled with increased food demand requi…

  • Balancing tradeoffs: Reconciling multiple environmental goals when ecosystem services vary regionally

    Open AccessChristine S O’Connell, K M Carlson et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2018

    As the planet’s dominant land use, agriculture often competes with the preservation of natural systems that provide globally and regionally important ecosystem services. How agriculture impacts ecosystem service delivery varies regionally, among services being considered, and across spatial scales. Here, we assess the tradeoffs between four ecosystem services—agricultural production, carbon storage, biophysical climate regulation, and biodiversit…

  • Progress towards sustainable intensification in China challenged by land-use change

    Open AccessLijun Zuo, Zengxiang Zhang et al.ARTICLENature Sustainability2018Cited by: 13References: 2

  • Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: A transdisciplinary analysis

    Open AccessMario Herrero, Philip K Thornton et al.ARTICLEThe Lancet Planetary Health2017

    Background Information about the global structure of agriculture and nutrient production and its diversity is essential to improve present understanding of national food production patterns, agricultural livelihoods, and food chains, and their linkages to land use and their associated ecosystems services. Here we provide a plausible breakdown of global agricultural and nutrient production by farm size, and also study the associations between farm…

  • Acculturative stress as a moderator of treatment engagement and retention in behavioral activation and treatment as usual for Latinos with depression

    Open AccessMaría M Santos, Gabriela A Nagy et al.ARTICLEJournal of Latina/o Psychology2017

  • Subnational distribution of average farm size and smallholder contributions to global food production

    Open AccessLeah H Samberg, Leah Samberg et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2016

    Smallholder farming is the most prevalent form of agriculture in the world, supports many of the planet’s most vulnerable populations, and coexists with some of its most diverse and threatened landscapes. However, there is little information about the location of small farms, making it difficult both to estimate their numbers and to implement effective agricultural, development, and land use policies. Here, we present a map of mean agricultural a…

  • Rethinking Agricultural Trade Relationships in an Era of Globalization

    Graham K MacDonald, Kate A Brauman et al.ARTICLEBioScience2015

    Agricultural trade plays an important role in global food security and resource sustainability. Global food commodities trade is worth more than US$520 billion per year, could feed approximately two billion people, uses about 13% of worldwide cropland and pasture, and has geographically concentrated irrigation water demands. However, researchers rarely compare these monetary, nutritional, and resource metrics, which limits our ability to holistic…

  • Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability

    Open AccessD K Ray, James S Gerber et al.ARTICLENature Communications2015

    Many studies have examined the role of mean climate change in agriculture, but an understanding of the influence of inter-annual climate variations on crop yields in different regions remains elusive. We use detailed crop statistics time series for ~13,500 political units to examine how recent climate variability led to variations in maize, rice, wheat and soybean crop yields worldwide. While some areas show no significant influence of climate va…

  • Leverage points for improving global food security and the environment

    Open AccessPaul West, Paul C West et al.ARTICLEScience2014

    How to optimize global food production Keeping societies stable and managing Earth's resources sustainably depend on doing a good, steady job producing and distributing food. West et al. asked what combinations of crops and regions offer the best chance of progress. Their analysis focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient pollution, water use, and food waste. They identify regions that are likely to yield the best balance between app…

  • A tradeoff frontier for global nitrogen use and cereal production

    Open AccessNathaniel D Mueller, Paul West et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2014

    Nitrogen fertilizer use across the world’s croplands enables high-yielding agricultural production, but does so at considerable environmental cost. Imbalances between nitrogen applied and nitrogen used by crops contributes to excess nitrogen in the environment, with negative consequences for water quality, air quality, and climate change. Here we utilize crop input-yield models to investigate how to minimize nitrogen application while achieving c…

  • Yield Trends Are Insufficient to Double Global Crop Production by 2050

    Open AccessD K Ray, Nathaniel D Mueller et al.ARTICLEPLoS ONE2013

    Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal. However, we first need to understand how crop yields are changing globally, and whether we are on track t…

  • Redefining agricultural yields: From tonnes to people nourished per hectare

    Open AccessEugene S Cassidy, Emily S Cassidy et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2013

    Worldwide demand for crops is increasing rapidly due to global population growth, increased biofuel production, and changing dietary preferences. Meeting these growing demands will be a substantial challenge that will tax the capability of our food system and prompt calls to dramatically boost global crop production. However, to increase food availability, we may also consider how the world’s crops are allocated to different uses and whether it i…

  • Recent patterns of crop yield growth and stagnation

    Open AccessD K Ray, Navin Ramankutty et al.ARTICLENature Communications2012

  • Toward Principles for Enhancing the Resilience of Ecosystem Services

    Open AccessReinette Biggs, Maja Schlüter et al.ARTICLEAnnual Review of Environment and…2012

    Enhancing the resilience of ecosystem services (ES) that underpin human well-being is critical for meeting current and future societal needs, and requires specific governance and management policies. Using the literature, we identify seven generic policy-relevant principles for enhancing the resilience of desired ES in the face of disturbance and ongoing change in social-ecological systems (SES). These principles are (P1) maintain diversity and r…

  • Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land

    Open AccessPaul West, Paul C West et al.ARTICLEProceedings of the National…2010

    Expanding croplands to meet the needs of a growing population, changing diets, and biofuel production comes at the cost of reduced carbon stocks in natural vegetation and soils. Here, we present a spatially explicit global analysis of tradeoffs between carbon stocks and current crop yields. The difference among regions is striking. For example, for each unit of land cleared, the tropics lose nearly two times as much carbon (∼120 tons·ha −1 vs. ∼6…

  • The Snowplow and the Dream Machine: Confessions of an American Novelist

    Paul WestARTICLERevue française d’études…1995

    Offrant ici une retrospective de la creation de son oeuvre romanesque, P. West joue avec les definitions de la fiction et du roman, accumulation progressive ne prenant forme que lorsqu'elle a atteint sa masse critique pour devenir une charge explosive; dans une apologie de l'artifice, d'une ecriture exigeante et critique, il lance une denonciation provocatrice d'une litterature complaisante et rend un ultime hommage a la langue

  • Sheer Fiction: Mind and the Fabulist's Mirage

    Paul WestARTICLENew Literary History1976

    LIFE OBLIGES US to talk to people we would ignore. But that paradoxical otherwise is a poor alternative, and I invoke it only to put in context my suspicion that, if others over the years had not advanced the idea that is incompatible with art, I might not have hit on such twaddle myself (especially in regard to fiction, the art I engage in). First, there is the familiar slur, less argument than holy conviction, that discursive thinking isn't art…

  • Adam's Alembic or Imagination versus mc 2

    Paul WestARTICLENew Literary History1970

  • The Wine of Absurdity

    John M Hems, Paul WestARTICLEPhilosophy and Phenomenological…1967