Combining farmers’ decision rules and landscape stochastic regularities for landscape modelling

Impact of farmland fragmentation on rainfed crop allocation in Mediterranean landscapes: A case study of the Lebna watershed in Cap Bon, Tunisia

“…Therefore, characterizing the drivers of crop allocation to fields is a prerequisite for (1) exploring and simulating spatially explicit plausible land use scenarios, and (2) quantifying the subsequent ecosystem services and disservices Rizzo et al, 2013). As discussed in previous studies, land use pattern dynamics on agricultural landscapes result from crop allocation rules that are defined at the farm scale and that drive both the successions of crops over several years and the annual distributions of crops among farmlands (Joannon et al, 2008;Thenail et al, 2009;Castellazzi et al, 2010;Houet et al, 2010;Sorel et al, 2010;Schaller et al, 2012;Stoebner and Lant, 2014). Once crops are selected for any year, allocation rules concern a choice (1) of suitable cultivation area for each crop (all sui-table plots for the considered crop), (2) of the crop surface area (total area of a considered crop on the farmland), (3) of crop return time (acceptable time to reseed the same crop on the same plot) and (4) of preceding-following crop pairs (acceptable temporal crop sequences) (Aubry et al, 1998).…”

“…Once crops are selected for any year, allocation rules concern a choice (1) of suitable cultivation area for each crop (all sui-table plots for the considered crop), (2) of the crop surface area (total area of a considered crop on the farmland), (3) of crop return time (acceptable time to reseed the same crop on the same plot) and (4) of preceding-following crop pairs (acceptable temporal crop sequences) (Aubry et al, 1998). Describing these rules and identifying their drivers is necessary to explain the observed spatiotemporal patterns of crop location at the landscape scale (Schaller et al, 2012). This is also a prerequisite both to simulate landscape patterns and to compel land-scape evolution models (Thenail et al, 2009;Castellazzi et al, 2010;Houet et al, 2014;Jahel, 2016).…”

Understanding farm trajectories and development pathways: Two decades of change in southern Mali

“…In a developed country context, based on detailed agricultural censuses and land use monitoring datasets, Mignolet et al (2007) showed the link between the European Common Agricultural Policy and specialization of farms towards cash crops and disappearance of livestock at regional scale. Landscape spatial organization dynamics in link with farmer decisions, market conditions and public policies has also been well documented in various European countries (Schaller et al, 2011;Stoate et al, 2009). Dynamic farm typologies in Guadeloupe (Chopin et al, 2014) showed how access to irrigation schemes can trigger diversification of farm systems.…”

Agronomy, land, and territory: Working on and for territorial development, the stakes for agronomy

“…Jusqu'à une période récente, l'aménagement relevait avant tout du génie rural et l'agronomie se sentait peu concernée. Aujourd'hui, l'agronomie doit revendiquer sa contribution à un aménagement intégré et multifonctionnel, permettant notamment : i) de prendre en compte les systèmes de culture dans la localisation et le dimensionnement des aménagements, car ces systèmes de culture influent sur les phénomènes que l'on veut contrôler, mais peuvent aussi être plus ou moins perturbés par les aménagements, par exemple si ceuxci ne prennent pas bien en compte la circulation des engins ; ii) d'assurer une continuité et complémentarité entre différents niveaux d'organisation spatiale et de décision concernant l'aménagement : zone homogène intraparcellaire, parcelle, exploitation, groupe d'exploitations contiguës, espaces encore plus vastes incluant des motifs ou entités non agricoles (Schäller et al, 2012).…”