Land use is a cornerstone of human civilization, but also intrinsically linked to many global sustainability challenges-from climate change to food security to the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Understanding the underlying technological, institutional and economic drivers of land-use change, and how they play out in different environmental, socio-economic and cultural contexts, is therefore important for identifying effective policies to successfully address these challenges. In this regard, much can be learned from studying long-term land-use change. We examined the evolution of European land management over the past 200 years with the aim of identifying (1) key episodes of changes in land management, and (2) their underlying technological, institutional and economic drivers. To do so, we generated narratives elaborating on the drivers of land use-change at the country level for 28 countries in Europe. We qualitatively grouped drivers into land-management regimes, and compared changes in management regimes across Europe. Our results allowed discerning seven land-management regimes, and highlighted marked heterogeneity regarding the types of management regimes occurring in a particular country, the timing and prevalence of regimes, and the conditions that result in observed bifurcations. However, we also found strong similarities across countries in the timing of certain landmanagement regime shifts, often in relation to institutional reforms (e.g., changes in EU agrarian policies or the emergence and collapse of the Soviet land management paradigm) or to technological innovations (e.g., drainage pipes, tillage and harvesting machinery, motorization, and synthetic fertilizers). Land reforms frequently triggered changes in land management, and the location and timing of reforms had substantial impacts on land-use outcomes. Finally, forest protection policies and voluntary cooperatives were important drivers of land-management changes. Overall, our results demonstrate that land-system changes should not be conceived as unidirectional developments following predefined trajectories, but rather as path-dependent processes that may be affected by various drivers, including sudden events.

No abstract

Natural decrease and out-migration are the main processes causing depopulation of rural areas in most of the easternEU countries. The causes of depopulation are varied as well as numerous and might differ within the same country or even a region. Both internal and international migration play an important role inthepopulation decline in Lithuania, but their relative importance differ from region to region. Depopulation leads to a falling population density and therefore to the shrinkage of social networks, especially in the rural areas. It has broad consequences for the life quality, causes pessimistic attitudes and threatens the future development of the sparsely populated areas. There is little hope that the existing demographictrends will change in the nearest future. However, the analysed processes are usually perceived purely negatively, thoughit is not true in somerespects.

This paper reports on a comprehensive evaluation of socio-spatial inequalities as a means of analysing spatial exclusion in line with demographic, social and economic components expressed using 20 key indicators. The utilised method of grouping into quartiles was able to demonstrate increasingly pronounced polarisation trends in Lithuania, with widening disparities to be noted, both between the major cities of Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda and their regions, and between peripheral areas of the country. The level of spatial exclusion is seen to be highest in Lithuania’s north-eastern and southern regions, which have been identified as problematic. It is to these regions that a majority of the attention in this work has been paid.

Since its restored political independence, Lithuania has launched a set of reforms for changing the country's political, socioeconomic, institutional and territorial models. Reforms have not advanced at the same pace in all fields however. In particular, institutional and territorial reforms are lagging far behind. A lack of experience with autonomy for local authorities is linked to Lithuania's geopolitical position between central Europe (particulary Poland) and Russia, which used to impose their own institutions and division into territorial units. The slow pace of reforms since 1989 has an impact on regional development, especially in rural areas, and on socioeconomic differences between regions. Regional and local development is blocked owing to insufficient decentralization and an inadequate managerial autonomy for local authorities. Institutions at the regional and local levels are also wanting. Despite the change of system, new arrangements are implemented within territorial units inherited from the Soviet era. The institutional and territorial model conveyed by democratization and decentralization has not yet been put into practice.