An Effective Way to Map Land-Use Intensity with a High Spatial Resolution Based on Habitat Type and Environmental Data

Abstract

Mapping and monitoring agricultural land-use intensity (LUI) changes are essential for understanding their effects on biodiversity. Current land-use models provide a rather coarse spatial resolution, while in-situ measurements of LUI cover only a limited extent and are time-consuming and expensive. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of using habitat type, topo-climatic, economic output, and remote-sensing data to map LUI at a high spatial resolution. To accomplish this, we first rated the habitat types across the agricultural landscape in terms of the amount and frequency of fertiliser input, pesticide input, ploughing, grazing, mowing, harvesting, and biomass output. We consolidated these ratings into one LUI index per habitat type that we then related to topo-climatic, economic output, and remote-sensing predictors. The results showed that the LUI index was strongly related to plant indicator values for mowing tolerance and soil nutrient content and to aerial nitrogen deposition, and thus, is an adequate index. Topo-climatic, and, to a smaller extent, economic output and remote-sensing predictors, proved suitable for mapping LUI. Large- to medium-scale patterns are explained by topo-climatic predictors, while economic output predictors explain medium-scale patterns and remote-sensing predictors explain local-scale patterns. With the fine-scale LUI map produced from this study, it is now possible to estimate within unvarying land-use classes, the effect on agrobiodiversity of an increase in LUI on fertile and accessible lands and of a decrease of LUI by the abandonment of marginal agricultural lands, and thus, provide a valuable base for understanding the effects of LUI on biodiversity. Due to the worldwide availability of remote-sensing and climate data, our methodology can be easily applied to other countries where habitat-type data are available. Given their low explanatory power, economic output variables may be omitted if not available.