Land and farming system dynamics and their drivers in the Mediterranean Basin

Debolini, Marta; Marraccini, Élisa; Dubeuf, Jean-Paul; Geijzendorffer, Ilse R.; Guerra, Carlos A.; Simon, Marian; Targetti, Stefano; Napoléone, Claude

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.07.010

Cited by 60 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Contrasting, agricultural abandonment was predominating in Alcoutim, the most marginalized area for its lower accessibility, shallow soil and hilly topography. This is in agreement with trends described in the literature in marginal Mediterranean areas [10,12,[35][36][37].…”

Section: Dealing With Changesupporting

confidence: 93%

“…When viable, the tendency is to intensify production and increase productivity [1]. In peripheral areas, either geographic, economic and/or productive, systems are being pushed towards states of lesser human management through extensification, abandonment or afforestation [10]. Although contrasting, and varying in its degree of repercussion, all of these trends influence how land systems are being managed, potentially threatening natural and cultural values associated with certain land systems [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unveiling Contrasting Preferred Trajectories of Local Development in Southeast Portugal

Esgalhado

Guimarães

2020

Land

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Mediterranean land systems are amongst the most susceptible to global change, in part due to the region’s vulnerability to climate change and misfit within a high production demanding political and societal setting. The impact of global drivers at a local scale (i.e., the possible trajectories of change of a territory) are context-dependent, and to some extent dependent on how local actors perceive them and act upon them. In this study, we focused on southeast Portugal and conducted 22 interviews and 1 collective workshop to understand how different actors across the territory anticipate the development of the region and its land systems. From our results, we get a picture of a depopulated territory, constrained by ill-adjusted policies to its harsh conditions, including little water availability and continuous depopulation. We found contrasting preferred trajectories of development for the territory. On one hand, there is a preference for prioritizing traditional land systems, usually rainfed and multifunctional. Contrasting, a need for water reservoirs that would increase water availability and allow for profitable agricultural activities and thus fixate population is recognized. The different perspectives fit with a wider debate on the role of agriculture, intensification and ecosystem services under an increasingly arid Mediterranean. The next challenge is to integrate technical expertise and knowledge with local needs and initiatives, to fit in a broader scale strategic plan. We identify a lack of technical support regarding soil health. Poor soil, from the perspective of several stakeholders, is a characteristic of the region. Knowledge dissemination is urgent so that farmers can proactively improve soil health and benefit from its capacity to increase production and retain water. We urge a higher effort from the scientific community focusing on marginal areas, supporting knowledge dissemination and analysis of the impacts of different trajectories of development.

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Section: Dealing With Changesupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unveiling Contrasting Preferred Trajectories of Local Development in Southeast Portugal

Esgalhado

Guimarães

2020

Land

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“…Classification/decision trees are appropriate explanatory models when the dependent variable is categorical, as in this case, while the independent variables can be categorical or numerical. They are frequently used in the literature to explore land use/cover changes e.g., [3,[28][29][30][31][32]. Although other alternative models (e.g., random forest models or neural network models) usually result in higher classification accuracy overall, their inherent complexity hinders interpretation of the results, which goes against the objectives of this work (the generation of explanatory hypotheses of relationships between explanatory and dependent variables).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of Land Use/Cover Change in the Iberian Peninsula (1990–2012) at Municipal Level

Nogueira

Rico

2019

Land

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This work analyzes the determinants associated with main land use/cover changes in the Iberian Peninsula during the 1990–2012 period using a decision tree model. Our main objective is to identify broad-scale patterns that associate the characteristics of geographic areas with the dominant land use/cover change process based on CORINE Land Cover (Coordination of Information on the Environment) and defined in a previously published work. Biophysical, structural and socioeconomic variables were considered as potentially explanatory of the dominant change process at municipal scale. The resulting model allowed identification of a common pattern in Portugal and Spain (urbanization being highly associated to areas already densely populated in the previous period), but also some diverging ones. In particular, dominant trends in Portuguese territory appear to be highly determined by wildfire occurrence. In contrast, Spanish municipalities showed more diverse patterns, usually associated to biophysical determinants like average forest productivity or average terrain slope.

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“…At the same time, unsustainable rural land management accelerates land degradation in the Mediterranean basin (Geist and Lambin, 2004;Hill et al, 2008;Bajocco et al, 2012;van Vliet et al, 2015). For example, intensified agriculture with a high application of fertilizers and pesticides, along with machinery, has degraded the quality of soil and water (Zalidis et al, 2002;Debolini et al, 2018). The combination of climate change and land degradation increases the vulnerability of agro-ecosystems and the economy depending on them (Berry et al, 2006;Thomas, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of conservation farming practices on Mediterranean agro-ecosystem services provisioning—a meta-analysis

et al. 2019

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In the Mediterranean region, the long-term provision of agro-ecosystem services is threatened by accelerating climate change, unsustainable farming practices and other pressures. Alternative management practices such as conservation agriculture could be expected to ensure sustainability of ecosystem services from Mediterranean agro-ecosystems. Conservation agriculture is characterized by minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversification of crop species. We analyzed the impacts of several forms of alternative agricultural management practices (conservation tillage, cover cropping, mulching, manual weed management, organic fertilizer use, no-irrigation system) on multiple ecosystem services based on 155 published case studies (1994-2015). The effect size of various management options on four provisioning and four regulating ecosystem services were quantified. Impacts of conservation management options are not uniform. All regulating services were positively affected by the conservation management options except for the system without irrigation. In contrast, the provisioning services were inconsistently influenced by the conservation management options. For crop yield, environmentally sustainable soil management was beneficial, but organic fertilization (effect size =-0.17), manual weed management (effect size =-0.35) and no-irrigation system (effect size =-0.5) led to lower crop yields. The impact on crop biomass was mainly negative but not significant. Water availability was especially important to enhance both provisioning and regulating services. Overall, alternative agriculture management practices led to more positive than negative effects on ecosystem services in the study region. Stimulating the application of conservation management practices is therefore an important policy option for decision makers given the vulnerability of ecosystem services in the Mediterranean basin.

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Land and farming system dynamics and their drivers in the Mediterranean Basin

Cited by 60 publications

References 43 publications

Unveiling Contrasting Preferred Trajectories of Local Development in Southeast Portugal

Unveiling Contrasting Preferred Trajectories of Local Development in Southeast Portugal

Determinants of Land Use/Cover Change in the Iberian Peninsula (1990–2012) at Municipal Level

The impact of conservation farming practices on Mediterranean agro-ecosystem services provisioning—a meta-analysis

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