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Context The reasons for recent landscape change in the European countryside are complex and poorly substantiated. Identification of drivers of landscape transition and assessment of the effects on the provision of landscape services are subject of recent debate. Objectives Aims of the paper are to explore what implications rural landscape transitions (as identified by land use and land cover changes) have for the provision of landscape services, and whether these changes can be related to specific drivers of change. Methods The paper records gross landscape change on the basis of land use and land cover changes in six case study areas in five countries, and assesses the impacts on the provision of landscape services in the past 25 years. Results In the past decades the observed land use and land cover changes in the case studies are relatively small, with a dominance of urbanisation and afforestation processes. However, the impacts of these changes are clearly reflected in a change in landscape services. Conclusions Although the landscape transitions do affect the services, spatial data alone is insufficient to Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Understanding complex processes of landscape change is crucial to guide the development of future landscapes and land resources. Through Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping, we studied the processes of landscape change of six different environmental zones in Europe. Results show that landscapes are complex systems, with many interactions. Except for one, all regions show a strong decline in landscape quality. Dominant drivers are EU policy and the global economy, sometimes in conjunction with environmental drivers or the governance system. The process of change differs for all cases, through urbanisation or land abandonment in some cases, and agricultural intensification in others. The (un)intended effects of policies are difficult to predict. Although some EU Policies directly improve landscape quality, their indirect effects as well as other EU policies outweigh this positive influence and jointly result in a decrease of landscape quality. To counter these negative side effects, targeted landscape policies are urgently needed.

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