Abstract
Abandonment of agricultural land is a process described from different regions of many industrialized countries. Given the current focus on land use, land use change and food security, it appears highly relevant to develop improved tools to identify and monitor the dynamics of agricultural land abandonment. In particular, the temporal aspect of abandonment needs to be assessed and discussed. In this study, we used the detailed information available through the Norwegian subsidy claim database and analyzed the history of use of unique land parcels through a fourteen-year period. We developed and tested five different statistics identifying these land parcels, their temporal dynamics and the extent of occurrence. What became apparent was that a large number of land parcels existing in the database as agricultural land were taken out of production, but then entered into production again at a later stage. We believe that this approach to describe the temporal dynamics of land abandonment, including how it can be measured and mapped, may contribute to the understanding of the dynamics in land abandonment, and thus also contribute to an improved understanding of the food production system.
Highlights
The 5 km and 10 km grid squares are used because these are standard units from Statistics Norway which are used in surveys to collect a range of relevant land use and land cover information
We propose that the often static term “abandonment” be reconsidered to better encompass temporal dynamics
Land parcels are removed from agricultural production and added again, and there appears to be considerably higher dynamics in land management than previously accounted for
Summary
How we use our land has a wide range of effects. Land provides habitat, is linked to culture, may influence sense of place, affects the economy and can provide a variety of resources and services. This makes land use a key instrument in meeting many of the current numerous challenges: climate change, preservation of biological diversity, the need for increased food production and moving away from the fossil economy, to mention but a few [1]. There is an increased focus on how best to use land in general, and biological renewable resources produced on land in particular, as sustainably as possible
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