Mapping change in the agricultural landscape of Lemnos

Abstract

The agricultural landscape of Mediterranean islands has transformed radically over the last 60 years. The results differ, due to the interplay of macro, national, and local factors for each setting. In this study, some of these trajectories of change are examined for the island of Lemnos in Greece, using remote sensing and oral history techniques. The first aim is to present the changes in and of the agricultural landscape of Lemnos, applying quantitative and qualitative methods, in order to capture different aspects of those changes. The second aim is to identify the socio-economic factors that underlie landscape changes or lack of, using local knowledge and perception of the landscape. Land cover maps were produced by aerial photographs using additional texture features, for 1960, 1980, and 2002, through object-oriented image analysis (OBIA). Interviews and a workshop with local actors were used to validate and understand different change trajectories, and to identify the factors behind these changes. Results show that although grasslands have increased, revealing a process of extensification of agriculture in the study area, change has affected a small proportion of the landscape. This process is backed by information revealed through qualitative methods, as migration of labor power in the 1960s and mechanization of the agricultural sector in the late 1970s and early 1980s have been the main factors of the transformation of the agricultural sector in Lemnos, resulting in bigger mixed crop-livestock farms and the abandonment of marginal areas. The results of these processes are discussed in the context of agricultural change in the Mediterranean.