Over the past decades, landscapes worldwide have experienced changes (e.g., urbanization, agricultural intensification, expansion of renewable energy uses) at magnitudes that put their sustainability at risk. The understanding of the drivers of these landscape changes remains challenging, partly because landscape research is spread across many domains and disciplines. We here provide a systematic synthesis of 144 studies that identify the proximate and underlying drivers of landscape change across Europe. First, we categorize how driving forces have been addressed and find that most studies consider medium-term time scales and local spatial scales. Most studies assessed only one case study area, one spatial scale, and less than four points in time. Second, we analyze geographical coverage of studies and reveal that countries with a non-European Union/European Free Trade Association membership; low Gross Domestic Product; boreal, steppic, and arctic landscapes; as well as forestland systems are underrepresented in the literature. Third, our review shows that land abandonment/extensification is the most prominent (62% of cases) among multiple proximate drivers of landscape change. Fourthly, we find that distinct combinations of mainly political/institutional, cultural, and natural/spatial underlying drivers are determining landscape change, rather than single key drivers. Our systematic review indicates knowledge gaps that can be filled by: (a) expanding the scope of studies to include underrepresented landscapes; (b) clarifying the identification and role of actors in landscape change; (c) deploying more robust tools and methods to quantitatively assess the causalities of landscape change; (d) setting up long-term studies that go beyond mapping land-cover change only; (e) strengthening cross-site and crosscountry comparisons of landscape drivers; (f) designing multi-scale studies that consider teleconnections; (g) considering subtle and novel processes of landscape change.
Food production on the urban-rural fringe is under pressure due to competing land uses. We discuss the potential to improve resilience for urban-rural regions by enhancing food production as part of multifunctional land use. Through studies of peri-urban land in the regions of Gothenburg (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark) and Gent (Belgium), recent developments are analysed. Arable farming has been declining since 2000 in all three areas due to urban expansion and recreational land use changes. In city plans, networks of protected areas and green spaces and their importance for human wellbeing have been acknowledged. Policies for farmland preservation in peri-urban settings exist, but strategies for local food production are not expressed in present planning documents. Among the diversity of peri-urban agricultural activities, peri-urban food production is a developing issue. However, the competing forms of land use and the continuing high dependence of urban food on global food systems and related resource flows reduces peri-urban food production and improvements in urban food security. The positive effects of local food production need to be supported by governance aiming to improve the urban-rural relationship. The paper discusses the resilience potential of connecting urban-rural regions and re-coupling agriculture to regional food production.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.