Effects of institutional changes on land use: agricultural land abandonment during the transition from state-command to market-driven economies in post-Soviet Eastern Europe

Prishchepov, Alexander V.; Radeloff, Volker C.; Baumann, Matthias; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Müller, Daniel

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/2/024021

Cited by 239 publications

(159 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…For instance, the farmland abandonment rate of 18% detected with a MODIS time series has been observed during 2006-2008 across Russia, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine [29]. While the direct comparison of land abandonment rates and patterns with other case studies across former Soviet Union is challenging because the time periods and abandonment definitions used vary among studies, the cross-border comparison in the ASB area revealed some interesting patterns, similar to cross-border studies in Eastern Europe [119,120]. For instance, our study revealed drastic differences in land abandonment rates among the neighboring countries (i.e., 4% in Kyrgyzstan and 33% in Kazakhstan) compared to variations in land abandonment rates at the province level within the studied countries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Mapping Cropland Abandonment in the Aral Sea Basin with MODIS Time Series

Löw¹,

Prishchepov

Waldner

et al. 2018

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:Cropland abandonment is globally widespread and has strong repercussions for regional food security and the environment. Statistics suggest that one of the hotspots of abandoned cropland is located in the drylands of the Aral Sea Basin (ASB), which covers parts of post-Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran. To date, the exact spatial and temporal extents of abandoned cropland remain unclear, which hampers land-use planning. Abandoned land is a potentially valuable resource for alternative land uses. Here, we mapped the abandoned cropland in the drylands of the ASB with a time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from [2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012][2013][2014][2015][2016]. To overcome the restricted ability of a single classifier to accurately map land-use classes across large areas and agro-environmental gradients, "stratum-specific" classifiers were calibrated and classification results were fused based on a locally weighted decision fusion approach. Next, the agro-ecological suitability of abandoned cropland areas was evaluated. The stratum-specific classification approach yielded an overall accuracy of 0.879, which was significantly more accurate (p < 0.05) than a "global" classification without stratification, which had an accuracy of 0.811. In 2016, the classification results showed that 13% (1.15 Mha) of the observed irrigated cropland in the ASB was idle (abandoned). Cropland abandonment occurred mostly in the Amudarya and Syrdarya downstream regions and was associated with degraded land and areas prone to water stress. Despite the almost twofold population growth and increasing food demand in the ASB area from 1990 to 2016, abandoned cropland was also located in areas with high suitability for farming. The map of abandoned cropland areas provides a novel basis for assessing the causes leading to abandoned cropland in the ASB. This contributes to assessing the suitability of abandoned cropland for food or bioenergy production, carbon storage, or assessing the environmental trade-offs and social constraints of recultivation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Mapping Cropland Abandonment in the Aral Sea Basin with MODIS Time Series

Löw¹,

Prishchepov

Waldner

et al. 2018

Remote Sensing

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“…These key questions are still largely unresolved and require models able to integrate plant physiology, demography, and biogeography, as well as social and land-use sciences. A key future challenge is to better account for human decision-making, policy impacts, and feedbacks in models and projections of future vegetation change (140).…”

Section: Summary and Future Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global change and terrestrial plant community dynamics

Franklin

Serra‐Diaz

Syphard

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

316

225

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This contribution is part of a special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2014.Contributed by Janet Franklin, February 2, 2016 (sent for review October 8, 2015; reviewed by Gregory P. Asner, Monica G. Turner, and Peter M. Vitousek)Anthropogenic drivers of global change include rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses and resulting changes in the climate, as well as nitrogen deposition, biotic invasions, altered disturbance regimes, and land-use change. Predicting the effects of global change on terrestrial plant communities is crucial because of the ecosystem services vegetation provides, from climate regulation to forest products. In this paper, we present a framework for detecting vegetation changes and attributing them to global change drivers that incorporates multiple lines of evidence from spatially extensive monitoring networks, distributed experiments, remotely sensed data, and historical records. Based on a literature review, we summarize observed changes and then describe modeling tools that can forecast the impacts of multiple drivers on plant communities in an era of rapid change. Observed responses to changes in temperature, water, nutrients, land use, and disturbance show strong sensitivity of ecosystem productivity and plant population dynamics to water balance and long-lasting effects of disturbance on plant community dynamics. Persistent effects of land-use change and human-altered fire regimes on vegetation can overshadow or interact with climate change impacts. Models forecasting plant community responses to global change incorporate shifting ecological niches, population dynamics, species interactions, spatially explicit disturbance, ecosystem processes, and plant functional responses. Monitoring, experiments, and models evaluating multiple change drivers are needed to detect and predict vegetation changes in response to 21st century global change.climate change | drought | forests | global change | land-use change T errestrial plant communities include forests, woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands; they support economic activities including forestry and grazing and provide other ecosystem services (1) such as carbon sequestration and water delivery. Plant communities play a key role in global biogeochemical cycles of carbon, oxygen, water, and nitrogen, with feedbacks to the oceans, atmosphere, and climate. The distribution of animals on land is often influenced by the distribution of vegetation, and therefore, plant community dynamics affect biodiversity. Changes in the Earth's vegetation in response to climate change, and associated faunal changes, may have played a role in the evolution of the human lineage (2, 3). Thus, human populations have a vested interest in understanding rapid global change effects on terrestrial plant communities.Anthropogenic drivers of global change include rising atmospheric concentrations of CO 2 and other greenhouse gasses and associated changes in the climate, as well...

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“…Similarly in Europe, where agricultural land is assumed to be partially turned into forest land as well (Rounsevell et al 2006;Stoate et al 2009;Ruskule et al 2016). An increase in forest land area and a decrease in farmland area has been observed in Europe since the early 19 th century (Wulf 2004;Prishchepov 2012); currently, an area of approximately 12 -16 million hectares (FAO 2008;Campbell et al 2008) is considered to be afforested on this continent. The area of agricultural and non-forest land suitable for afforestation can be illustrated on the example of the Czech Republic.…”

Section: Statistical Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon sequestration in soil following afforestation of former agricultural land in the Czech Republic

Cukor

Vacek

Linda

et al. 2017

Central European Forestry Journal

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Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a great component of the global carbon cycle and plays significant role in terms of climatic changes and agricultural land-use. An important management concern is the extent of SOC stocks sequestration when farmland is converted to forest stands. We have reviewed the literature about changes in SOC stock in relation to altitude and stand age and sought differences between former agricultural land and origin forest stands. Accumulation of SOC was monitored in 17 examples (41 samples) in 9 locations across the all Czech Republic with focus on the main tree species Norway spruce (Picea abies [L.] Karst.). Results showed a significant increase of SOC stock in an afforested farmland with increasing stand age. Another factor was the altitude. With increasing altitude, the carbon stock in our model gradually decreased. From the data analyzed comparing forest stand and former agricultural land, similar carbon sequestration was documented for both variants with higher SOC for forest stands. However, other conditions affecting SOC stock should be taken into consideration, especially silvicultural management, topography, disturbances, soil properties and cultivation. The general tendencies of SOC changes at the investigated sites are comparable to those in other studies across the Europe.

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Effects of institutional changes on land use: agricultural land abandonment during the transition from state-command to market-driven economies in post-Soviet Eastern Europe

Abstract: Environ. Res. Lett. 7 (2012) 024021A V Prishchepov et al land-use change offers vast opportunities for carbon balance and biodiversity, and for increasing agricultural production on previously cultivated lands.

Cited by 239 publications

References 56 publications

Mapping Cropland Abandonment in the Aral Sea Basin with MODIS Time Series

Mapping Cropland Abandonment in the Aral Sea Basin with MODIS Time Series

Global change and terrestrial plant community dynamics

Carbon sequestration in soil following afforestation of former agricultural land in the Czech Republic

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