Climate change will affect land-related ecosystem services (e.g., pollination, resilience to extreme climate events, water yield, soil conservation, carbon storage, etc.) and biodiversity, both directly and indirectly. The direct impacts range from subtle reductions or enhancements of specific services, such as biological productivity, resulting from changes in temperature, temperature variability or rainfall, to complete disruption and elimination of services. Disruptions of ecosystem services can occur where climate change causes transitions from one biome to another, for example, forest to grassland as a result of changes in water balance or natural disturbance regimes.
Climate change will result in range shifts and, in some cases, extinction of species. Climate change can also alter the mix of land-related ecosystem services, such as groundwater recharge, purification of water, and flood protection. While the net impacts are specific to time as well as ecosystem types and services, there is an asymmetry of risk such that overall impacts of climate change are expected to reduce ecosystem services. Indirect impacts of climate change on land-related ecosystem services include those that result from changes in human behaviour, including potential large-scale human migrations or the implementation of afforestation, reforestation or other changes in land management, which can have positive or negative outcomes on ecosystem services.