Land-use changes in Europe have been influenced by social forces including economic, demographic, political, technological and cultural factors. Contributing to a refined conceptualization of multifaceted processes of landscape transformation in the European continent, the present study proposes an extensive review of land-use trends in Eastern Europe, focusing on past, present and future conditions that may characterize latent drivers of change. Three time periods with a specific institutional, political and socioeconomic context reflecting distinct processes of land-use change were identified including: (i) the rapid transition to a centralized political system since the early 1950s (up to the late 1980s); (ii) a progressive transition from communist regimes to parliamentary democracy in 1989–1990 (up to the early 2000s); and (iii) the subsequent accession of individual countries to the European Union (2004–2007) up to nowadays. The most recent land-use trends are increasingly influenced by European directives on the environment, while national policies continue to shape economic development in member states.

Domestic gardens supply pollinators with valuable habitats, but the risk of exposure to pesticides has been little investigated. Artificial nesting shelters of a red mason bee species (Osmia bicornis) were placed in two suburban gardens and two commercial fruit orchards to determine the contamination of forage sources by pesticides. Larval pollen provisions were collected from a total of 14 nests. They consisted mainly of pollen from oaks (65–100% weight/sample), Brassicaceae (≤34% w/s) and fruit trees (≤1.6% w/s). Overall, 30 pesticides were detected and each sample contained a mixture of 11–21 pesticide residues. The pesticide residues were significantly lower in garden samples than in orchard samples. The difference was attributed mainly to the abundant fungicides pyrimethanil and boscalid, which were sprayed in fruit orchards and were present on average at 1004 ppb and 648 ppb in orchard samples, respectively. The results suggested that pollinators can benefit from domestic gardens by foraging from floral sources less contaminated by pesticides than in adjacent croplands.

Climate change plays an important role in shaping ecological stability of landscape systems. Increasing weather fluctuations such as droughts threaten the ecological stability of natural and anthropogenic landscapes. Uncertainty exists regarding the validity of traditional landscape assessment schemes under climate change. This commentary debates the main factors that threaten ecological stability, discussing basic approaches to interpret landscape functioning. To address this pivotal issue, the intimate linkage between ecological stability and landscape diversity is explored, considering different approaches to landscape stability assessment. The impact of land-use changes on landscape stability is finally discussed. Assessment methodologies and indicators are reviewed and grouped into homogeneous classes based on a specific nomenclature of stability aspects which include landscape composition, fragmentation and connectivity, thermodynamic and functional issues, biodiversity, soil degradation, and ecological disturbance. By considering land-use change as one of the most important factors underlying climate change, individual components of landscape stability are finally delineated and commented upon. In this regard, specific trajectories of land-use change (including agricultural intensification, land abandonment, and urbanization) are investigated for their effects on ecological stability. A better understanding of land-use impacts on landscape stability is crucial for a better knowledge of processes leading to land degradation.

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Global and regional biodiversity loss is caused by several drivers including urban development, land use intensification, overexploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, and climate change. The main aim of our study was to adapt the GLOBIO3 model to the conditions of the Czech Republic (CR) to assess loss of naturalness and biodiversity vulnerability at the habitat level on a detailed scale across the entire CR. An additional aim was to assess the main drivers affecting the biodiversity of habitat types. The GLOBIO3 model was adapted to CZ-GLOBIO by adapting global to local scales and using habitat quality and naturalness data instead of species occurrence data. The total mean species abundance (MSA) index of habitat quality, calculated from the spatial overlay of the four MSA indicators by our new equation, reached the value 0.62. The total value of MSA for natural and near-natural habitats was found to be affected mainly by infrastructure development and fragmentation. Simultaneously, intensity of land use change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition contributed primarily to the low total value of MSA for distant natural habitats. The CZ-GLOBIO model can be an important tool in political decision making to reduce the impact of the main drivers on habitat biodiversity in the CR.

AbstractThe choice of suitable biodiversity assessment methods for practical purposes in city planning and decision-making is still a challenging problem. Despite the availability of a wide variety of methods for almost all dimensions of diversity (mainly species and habitat diversity, including spatial aspects), few of them have entered the practical ‘daily’ work. In the example of in-depth examinations in German and Czech cities (e.g., Dresden and Liberec), it was found that the most frequently applied analyses are those of protected species and habitats in urban nature conservation in general, and particularly in city development planning to derive avoidance, protection and compensation measures. Preference analyses (questionnaires, structured interviews) are becoming increasingly popular. Economic calculations of habitat values and the valuation of ecosystem services are still in their infancy. We will present methods that are presently being applied or could be included in a practical methodological toolkit to analyse and valuate biodiversity in urban nature conservation, city planning and decision-making.

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The linkage between land-use change and demographic transitions in advanced countries has becoming increasingly complex because of the mutual interplay of environmental and socioeconomic spheres influencing the degree of sustainability of both regional and local developmental processes. The relationship between urbanization and economic development has been relatively well investigated by clarifying the consequent impacts on population dynamics. In the early phases of urbanization and economic development, population grew at a particularly high rate, declining (more or less rapidly) in the subsequent time interval. Improving income and education opportunities in urban settings resulted in further urbanization, leading to progressively lower fertility. At the same time, a more general view on the relationship between land-use change and demographic transition focusing on a broader spectrum of landscape processes (including farmland abandonment and forest expansion) at larger spatial scales (from regional to country and continental scale) is increasingly required. The present study provides an integrated view of the relationship between land-use change, urbanization, and demographic transitions with specific focus on Europe. Considering divergent processes of landscape transformations in a unified socioeconomic view may evidence the intimate linkage with recent population trends in both urban and rural areas.