Land Use Change In Europe Research Articles

Trajectories of land use change in Europe: a model-based exploration of rural futures

Land use change is characterized by a high diversity of change trajectories depending on the local conditions, regional context and external influences. Policy intervention aims to counteract the negative consequences of these changes and provide incentives for positive developments. Region typologies are a common tool to cluster regions with similar characteristics and possibly similar policy needs. This paper provides a typology of land use change in Europe at a high spatial resolution based on a series of different scenarios of land use change for the period 2000–2030. A series of simulation models ranging from the global to the landscape level are used to translate scenario conditions in terms of demographic, economic and policy change into changes in European land use pattern. A typology developed based on these simulation results identifies the main trajectories of change across Europe: agricultural abandonment, agricultural expansion and urbanization. The results are combined with common typologies of landscape and rurality. The findings indicate that the typologies based on current landscape and ruralities are poor indicators of the land use dynamics simulated for the regions. It is advocated that typologies based on (simulated) future dynamics of land change are more appropriate to identify regions with potentially similar policy needs.

Future European agricultural landscapes—What can we learn from existing quantitative land use scenario studies?

Abstract The structure of agricultural production and spatial patterns of agricultural land use in Europe are expected to face major changes over the next decades due to changes in global trade, technology, demography and policies. This paper presents a set of 25 scenarios comprising information on quantitative land use changes in Europe. The scenarios have been selected from studies with different foci, operating on both different spatial scales and different time horizons. Given the diversity of quantitative scenarios this review illustrates the scenario design and its quantification, and evaluates the results of land use/cover changes on a European level. Major gaps of current scenario exercises and suggestions for improvement are topics of the discussion section (Section 4 ). The focus of this review is on the comparison of selected driving forces and on agricultural land use/cover change in “Western Europe” (i.e. EU-15 plus Switzerland and Norway for some studies). Results show large differences in future land use/cover changes ranging from moderate decreases (15%) to large increases (30%) depending on the assumptions about global trade, increase in agricultural productivity and biofuel production. Domestic demand is a minor factor of land use/cover change since population is only changing slightly, and the consumption level is stable and decoupled from economic growth. Scenarios show that the rate and direction of land cover change differ over time. Considerable shifts towards grassland abandonment in many scenarios reflect the changes in agricultural management. Increasing biofuel production as a result of both increasing energy demand and pro-active climate policies takes up considerable areas in many scenarios and prevents substantial abandonment of agricultural land. Although comparable quantitative results concerning European agricultural land use/cover change are only available on a very aggregated level, the results are important to be dealt with when discussing future challenges of rural areas.

Responses of birds of different biogeographic origins and habitat requirements to agricultural land abandonment in northern Spain

Agricultural land-use changes in Europe have taken two opposing directions: towards agricultural intensification or land abandonment. While in the Mediterranean region land abandonment is a main cause of avian diversity decline, in northern Europe species diversity often increases with successional age. We examined the hypothesis that the biogeographic origin of the avifauna determines whether abandonment brings conservation benefits or detriment by studying the bird community of agricultural land in northern Spain, at the boundary of the Mediterranean and Eurosiberian regions. Using a successional gradient, we examined landscape-scale effects of agricultural abandonment on birds during the breeding and non-breeding seasons.The trend in avian diversity with successional stage differed little between Mediterranean and Eurosiberian species in winter. In the spring, however, there was an increase in diversity with stage in abandonment for Eurosiberian birds but not for Mediterranean species. Analysis of individual species showed a preference among Eurosiberian birds for more wooded habitats whereas Mediterranean birds preferred open areas and shrubland.The introduction of agricultural policies to geo-political units that do not coincide with eco-regions cannot be assumed to bring uniform conservation benefits. In the Mediterranean region, agricultural mosaics of low intensity cultivation maintain the highest diversity of priority bird species. Agricultural land abandonment should not be assumed to benefit conservation.

Land Use Changes in Europe: Processes of Change, Environmental Transformations and Future Patterns

Patterns of land use in Europe owe much to the boundaries set by the natural environment. The alterations imposed by man are still ultimately constrained by natural limitations of which climate pays a major role. Possible global climatic change, therefore, is likely to have a major effect on land use patterns and this is the first volume to describe the potential changes against the background of historical land use changes in Europe, the likely future land use patterns and the policy implications that are becoming evident in relation to feasible land use management strategies. This book covers a wide spectrum of issues: How will the characteristics of the land resource change? What are the implications of these changes on the environment? What policies need to be introduced to encourage sensitivity to environmental supply limitations? What is the scale of response that is needed to address these issues? The workshop that addressed these topics was sponsored by IIASA in association with the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The Stockholm Environment Institute collaborated in this and took on the main responsibility of producing this volume from the range of contributions at the workshop.

Land Use Changes in Europe: Processes of Change, Environmental Transformations and Future Patterns

Land Use Changes in Europe: Processes of Change, Environmental Transformations and Future Patterns