The driving forces of landscape change in Europe: A systematic review of the evidence

Abstract

Over the past decades, landscapes worldwide have experienced changes (e.g., urbanization, agricultural intensification, expansion of renewable energy uses) at magnitudes that put their sustainability at risk. The understanding of the drivers of these landscape changes remains challenging, partly because landscape research is spread across many domains and disciplines. We here provide a systematic synthesis of 144 studies that identify the proximate and underlying drivers of landscape change across Europe. First, we categorize how driving forces have been addressed and find that most studies consider medium-term time scales and local spatial scales. Most studies assessed only one case study area, one spatial scale, and less than four points in time. Second, we analyze geographical coverage of studies and reveal that countries with a non-European Union/European Free Trade Association membership; low Gross Domestic Product; boreal, steppic, and arctic landscapes; as well as forestland systems are underrepresented in the literature. Third, our review shows that land abandonment/extensification is the most prominent (62% of cases) among multiple proximate drivers of landscape change. Fourthly, we find that distinct combinations of mainly political/institutional, cultural, and natural/spatial underlying drivers are determining landscape change, rather than single key drivers. Our systematic review indicates knowledge gaps that can be filled by: (a) expanding the scope of studies to include underrepresented landscapes; (b) clarifying the identification and role of actors in landscape change; (c) deploying more robust tools and methods to quantitatively assess the causalities of landscape change; (d) setting up long-term studies that go beyond mapping land-cover change only; (e) strengthening cross-site and crosscountry comparisons of landscape drivers; (f) designing multi-scale studies that consider teleconnections; (g) considering subtle and novel processes of landscape change.

Processes and driving forces in changing cultural landscapes across Europe

“…A recent review of studies looking at driving forces of landscape change in Europe (Plieninger et al 2016) similarly determined ''land abandonment and agricultural extensification'' as the most prominent ''proximate driver'' (i.e. following the terminology used by Geist and Lambin 2002).…”

“…from a descriptive to an analytical approach. The study of the so-called driving forces of landscape change has been promoted and influenced by various methodological contributions (Geist and Lambin 2002;Bürgi et al 2004;Plieninger et al 2016), building on a long tradition in geography and landscape research (Wood and Handley 2001). Already Wirth (1969) asked for a ''general cultural-geographic theory of forces'' and distinguished between economic (e.g.…”

“…Three different approaches in studies of driving forces of landscape change can be observed: Case studies conducted at the local/regional scale (Baumann et al 2011;Bürgi et al 2015), large-scale analyses (Terres et al 2015), and meta-analyses (Munteanu et al 2014;van Vliet et al 2015;Plieninger et al 2016). Whereas local case studies on landscape changes aim at grasping the specifics of a place and its development, which is essential for a systematic understanding of local changes, large-scale analyses search for main trends and processes over large areas.…”

From concepts to practice: combining different approaches to understand drivers of landscape change

“…2015, Qviström and Vicenzotti 2016, paralleled by a continuous increase in the use of the term landscape in studies related to, for example, land use, environmental change, agriculture, and land management. The underlying drivers or causes of landscape changes have been investigated by many different approaches, which has resulted in a diversity of terminologies (Meyfroidt 2015, Van Vliet et al 2015a, 2015b, Eiter and Potthoff 2016, Plieninger et al 2016). …”

Europe: the paradox of landscape change : A case-study based contribution to the understanding of landscape transitions

“…A review from Plieninger et al (2016) of 144 studies on drivers of landscape change showed that most studies assessed only one case study area at one local spatial scale and they therefore recommend studies that rather do cross-site and cross-country comparisons. They found that some regions are not well covered, e.g.…”