Abstract
European landscapes have featured considerable changes towards intensification and marginalisation. These major trends are expected to continue in the future. Besides, the cultivation of bioenergy crops has become an important factor in agricultural land use. A thorough understanding of land-use processes for management purposes is needed. In this study, the spatial and temporal pattern of agricultural land use and land-use change was classified at the scale of municipalities from 2005 to 2010. The study region was the German federal state Hesse. By using data of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) of the European Union and with the help of k-means cluster analysis, five types of agricultural land-use patterns and dynamics (TLPDs) were detected. These TLPDs represent different sub-regions. Sub-regions with favourable physical conditions for cultivation are dominated by arable land. A progressive land-use change occurred by conversion of grassland to arable land. In sub-regions, where physical conditions are rather unfavourable, especially in mountainous areas, grassland is the predominant land use. But on the remaining arable land, there is a slight change in favour of maize. The knowledge of sub-regions with spatially and temporally different agricultural land use could be utilised to develop land management instruments like site-specific agri-environmental schemes.
Highlights
IntroductionChanges in land use and land cover are influenced by both human activities and several natural ecological processes, and vary across space and time (Petit & Lambin 2002; Verburg et al 2010)
Land use is a central component of the landscape that surrounds us
types of agricultural land-use patterns and dynamics (TLPDs) A municipalities are characterised by a progressive landuse change in favour of maize to the disadvantage of grassland which means a conversion of grassland
Summary
Changes in land use and land cover are influenced by both human activities and several natural ecological processes, and vary across space and time (Petit & Lambin 2002; Verburg et al 2010). Land use refers to human activities that exploit the land cover with the purpose of producing goods and services (Lambin et al 2000; de Chazal & Rounsevell 2009). Many studies have analysed the dynamics of agricultural land use since it became evident that these dynamics affect the environment (Bürgi et al 2004), ecosystem functioning, and natural resources like water and soil quality, habitat quality, species richness, biodiversity, and others (Vagstad & Oygarden 2003; Rounsevell et al 2006; Xiao et al 2006)
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