Article Review . Ecaterina

A systematic review of different analysis and asssessment methods of farmland abandonment in Europe Author: Ecaterina Lorenț Course: Environmental and Resource Use Challenges

Linköping University, Departament of Thematic Studies ARTICLE INFO: __________________________________________________________ History Sent in draft:14.10.2016 Sent in draft:14.10.2016 Key words farmland abanonment land abandonment land use change Europe intensification extensification fallow land

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ABSTRACT Background: The process of farmland abandonement is one of the main land use changes in the last centuries.

With different triggers such as industrialisation, implemented policies regarding agriculture or different dynamics in trade as in the case o former sovietic states, it can be said is a procces that acts profoundly local, but with high impacts on a broader level. With future challenges that lie ahead as population growth and abandonment, since land is of strategic importance for EU. Five articles were reviewed for a comprehensive presentation of the subject, that shows not only trends and triggers of the proccess, but also their coverage and limits. This review highlights the importance of a better collaboration between assessment agents, for the purpose

Introduction​________________________________________________ 1.Background Human activity changed the land-use cover in Europe since the onset of agriculture 8000 years ago (McClure, 2013), by means of deforestation and ploughing, to use land for livestock (Grove and Rackham, 2000; Roberts, 2014, cited Lasanta, Nadal-Romero and Arnáez, 2015) The increasing trend of farmland growth slowed down starting with the 19th century, up to the present day, when land abandonment represents one of the major land use changes across the continent, particularly in mountainous areas and semiarid environments (MacDonald et al., 2000; Marty et al., 2003; Tasser et al., 2007; Sitzia et al., 2010; San Román Sanz et al., 2013 cited Lasanta et al., 2016).

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The whole proccess of land abandonment has three main triggers, starting with industrialisation when, due to technological advancement an intensification trend of land use had emerged, making remote areas with physical handicap the first to be deserted (Rienks, 2008 cited Kristensen et al., 2016). The second phase of which aftereffects can still be noticed, was triggered under the Common Agricultural Policy reforms between 19802006, when neglected areas expanded from the upland to the lowlands and transformed previous profitable fields into marginalised areas (Lesschen et al., 2007; Keenleyside and Tucker, 2010 cited Lasanta et al., 2016). The third wave of land abanonment comes as a result of the Sovietic Block`s fall in 1991 (Estel et al., 2015), when properties went back to their previous owners (Lasanta et al., 2016).

Motivation and Aim The aim of the paper is to critically analyse and review five articles thar present various assessment methods as well as perspectives, in order to offer a comprehensive presentation of the subject.

The drivers behind farmland abandonment are multidimensional, the process itself having different behavioral patterns through space and time. Since the european farmland accounts for almost half of the territory (EC, 2006 cited Terres et al. 2015) and almost 50% percent of plant and animal species depend on agricultural practices (Terres et al. 2015), in the same time being one of the main sources of economical development in rural areas, it is mandatory to be able to assess it accordingly at a broader level, since at the moment there are no consistent ways to evaluate it across Europe. Moreover, because of the threat of future food security, along with an exponential growth of human population, farmland becomes of a strategic importance in the european development plan (Mottet et al., 2006; Viviroli et al., 2007; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2003 as cited Terres et al. 2015)

FOCUS​_________________________________________________________ 2.Method In order to find and select between the array of peer-reviewed studies, Elsevier Data Search Engine was used. First criteria of selection was that all papers were published in the last 2 years and second, that they would use different tools and methods of evaluation. The third criteria was met if the paper would adress the issue, analysing the status-quo from at least of a transboundary perspective thus, avoid using data relevant only in a local context.

These five articles present a good overview of different used assessment methods and show best the lack of collaboration between actors on a bigger scale.

3.Overview on selected material and the presented approaches Lasanta et al.(2016) bring up in the discussion the lack of literature that studies triggers behind land abandonment proccess and aims to determine the main drivers of the events.

These are mentioned in all studied papers, albeit Lasanta et al.(2016) are the only ones to determine the actual relation between external drivers and local ones. The first one (e.g.migration and public policies) set up the process of land abandonment, while local reasons control the dynamics of it. Their stance is backed up by Terres et al.(2015) whom focus is on the drivers in relation to availability of european-wide data sources. Their aim is to assess the accuracy of their indicators.

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Estel et al.( 2015) speaks about the poor level of patterns understanding in land-use change at broad geographical scale (Schierhorn et al., 2013; Siebert et al., 2010 cited Estel et al.

2015), thus the aim of their article was to develop a new method of assessing fallow and active farmland. Van der Sluis et al.( 2016) and Kristensen et al.(2016) use the same selected case studies but have different goals, the first concentrating on the characteristics of land-use changes, whereas the latter puts more emphasis on determining future patterns of development.

After reading all papers, one can observe that 3 out of 5 focus on assessing the context in order to define the status-quo, while the other 2 aim to determine future trends of farmland abanonment or new methods of evaluation.

Points of agreement and disagreement Lasanta et al.(2016) recognize while there is an extensive amount of literature on the subject, there is little to none that accounts for the triggers behind the farmland abandonment process, as opposeed to those focused on impacts, stance taken by Terres et al.( 2015) as well, adding how problematic it is to debate the issue, partly because of the various ways to define and measure it, but also because of the inconsistent measurement across EU, making outcomes harder to evaluate (Pointereau et al., 2008 cited Terres et al. 2015).Estel et al( 2015) describes the assessment process through remote-sensing a challenging task, blaming the lack of adequate ground gata for the insufficiency of continental-scale maps of the phenomenon.

Terres et al., (2015) have the only study in which a definition of farmland abandonment is given, being described as a “cessation of land management which leads to undesirable changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services.” Even though a proper definition is not given, the process of land abandonment is contextualized, by van der Sluis et al.,( 2016) as happening when land is not economically viable anymore. Later in the paper, farmland marginalisation is defined as the process “driven by a combination of social, economic, political and environmental factors,by which certain areas of farmland cease to be viable under an existing land use and socio-economic structure’(Baldock etal.,1996, p.36 cited van der Sluis et al., 2016) Validity range All papers adress the issue, by collecting and using data along with case studies across all Europe, because of the widespread of the phenomenon. Yet, even though they come in a high number (Lasanta et al., 2016) because almost all studies are locally or regionally oriented and use different data composites, result corroboration is not possible.

Lasanta et al.( 2016) have one of the biggest coverage as they used as base for their study, 78 papers found through Scopus Data Search, that had as key words "land abandonment" and "drivers" . From the total, 71 were focused on Europe, especially in the Mediteranean basin and the rest in Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland. From all results, 61 were published between 2010 and 2015, the other 17 being from 2002-2009, so a growing concern for the subject throughout academia is noticeable.

Terres et al.(2015) and Estel et al.( 2015) also use data to map trends across EU, with van der Sluis et al.( 2016) and van der Sluis et al.( 2016) using case-studies in different areas of the continent.

For Lasanta et al.( 2016) analysis sites were grouped through different triggers behind abandonment process, as "land abandonment in European Mountains" , "land abandonment 2

due to CAP" and " land abandonment in countries of Sovietic influence". Estel et al.( 2015) categorized land as fallow, active or of other use, while van der Sluis et al.( 2016) chose their case studies following FARO typology (Van Eupen et al., 2012 cited Estel et al., 2015) as deep rural, rural and peri-urban. Kristensen et al.(2016) used a similar system as van der Sluis et al.( 2016), on the same case studies, but mentioned the economically viability of land as well, describing land as "periurban landscapes", "landscapes with marginal potential for agriculture" and "former socialist landscapes". Terres et al.,( 2015) fails to present an accurate categorisation of land cover or land use. When compared, it can be seen how dependent categorisation is to the aim of the study, making comparison and cross-checking of results harder at a continental level.

4.Assessment Methods Terres et al.(2015) used Corine Software for mapping resulted indicators across EU countries, applying statistical data on NUTS2 level related to the property and ownership. In order to better determine the drivers behind the process of farmland abandonment, they developed a composite indicator based on 9 identified drivers and indicators, six regarding farm economical fesability and the other three related to regional context. Data was collected by operating with farm accountancy network (FADN) and farm statistical survey (FSS), european database for agricultural statistics. Kristensen et al.(2016) also used statistics as a tool, but in relation with a questionnare survey, in order to investigate the patterns of land use change in areas where agriculture is under pressure and what are the influence factors behind farmowners decision-making process. Their framework puts the farmowner as a central piece in the analysis, since in the european context, land is mostly private owned. In six different villages they interviewed 437 owners ,this approach helping further to account for ambiguity (Mills et al. ,2013 cited Kristensen et al.2016). The settlements were grouped, based on the characteristics they presented. Representative for landscape with marginal potential to agriculture were Reichraming, Lesvos and Portofino, for peri-urban landscapes Roskilde and Heerde, and Stăncuța and Rătești for former socialist landscapes.

Estel et al.( 2015) uses remote sensing as main tool, through MODIS NDVI time series of sixteen-day composites from the satellites Terra and Aqua. Lasanta et al.,( 2016) used as a main tool Scopus DATA Search Engine to select and evaluate relevant literature in order to determine triggers and drivers of farmland abandonment.Then, found studies were analysed along with papers in library of the Pyrenean Instituteof Ecology.

In their paper, van der Sluis et al.( 2016) used the same methods of questionnaire but coupled with on-front interview with farmowners, using them as a direct source of information.

Limits and method restrictions In the case of Estel et al.(2015), data were collected from 2000 to 2012, showing a time limitation of the proccess. They used MODIS NDVI, even though from 2006, Europe has a comprehensive ground observation system with the Land Use/ Land Cover Area Frame Survey ( LUCAS) which is carried out every three years, but as mentioned, all existent data have not been yet integrated with satellite data to map fallow and active farmland (Estel et al., 2015). As stated in their article, they cannot rule out cases of mislabelling(e.g. low intensity pastures marked as unmanaged land) in areas where mixed pixels dominate. Their method`s accuracy is also questionned in other study,where is noted that one could not know the precise extent of farmland abandonment in european mountains before 1980, due 3

to the lack of a cartographic source as remote sensing (Lasanta et al.,2016) Furthermore, the paper brings on alternative assessing methods, highlighting the advantage of having the same system of monitoring at broad range, but Lasanta et al.,( 2016) considers field trips mandatory to have a good map, since “a plant succession process erases traces of cultivation, after land is being deserted”. For Kristensen et al.(2016) constraints came in form of inaccuracy of data, collected through the survey. For example, when farmers were asked about former production and specific quantities of used pesticides, they did not manage to answer with specific data, but rather with general information about increase/ decrease amounts, hence altering the accuracy of responses. For Lasanta et al.,( 2016) results were dependent on prior studies on the subject and as stated in the article, only one study had proven of significant value in the process of determing triggers of farmland abandonment. In the paper of Terres et al.(2015), the success of using their composite data was given by the availability of statistical data and as stated, there is a need for drivers such as social and behavioral reasons to be accounted for, which currently are not being integrated in the available agricultural-economic models in Europe (Terres et al. 2015).

Indicators It must be noted that, in selected articles, indicators were mapped at regional level (NUTS2) and then evaluated in terms of data availability, quality and relevance to the driver. At this level, regions have diverse agro-economic conditions, which don`t influence the whole areas in the same way (Terres et al., 2015) The scientific literature agrees on the local specific character of farmland abandonment, so is better to use indicators on a local level (LAU2) but the accessibility to accurate data is often an issue.

PAPER

FOCUS

RANGE

METHODS

INDICATORS

IMPACTS* at european level

Lasanta et al.(2016)

social

Terres et al.

(2015)

economic

continental

continental

Scopus Data search

Corine mapping + composite indicator

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-Weighted average of the rental, share of the rented UAA​, -​average farm income,

-uniform landscapes -high risk of propagating fire -reduce biodiversity level -reduction in river flows and water level in basins - loss of cultural landscapes -loss of arable land and pastures, essential for mountain communities -​areas with higher risk of farmland abandonment in S-E Europe and baltic countries

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-average level of farm investment, -share of old farmers -share of farmers with practical experience only, -loss of agricultural land, -share of remote agricultural area, -share of small farms -share of farms under organic farming scheme

Estel et al.

(2015)

environment

continental

remote sensing time series MODIS NDVI

-fallow frequency -farmland abandonmen -recultivation

specialised extensive farm at risk to negatively impact landscape and biodiveristy

van der Sluis et al.( 2016)

environment

local regional

Questionnaire +Multivariate Analysis

-crop yields -cultivated areas -nitrogen use -pesticide use -livestock density

S- ​further marginalisation E​- increase of agricultural productivity N-W​- expect intensification

Kristensen et al.(2016)

socio-econom ic

local and regional

Questionnaire +Interview

-typology of land-use changes -farm size - recultivation

T1 extensification T2 -abandonment T3 - further loss of biodiversity

5.Impacts - trends and risk projections In their article, Lasanta et al.(2016) presents two developing scenarios on european agricultural land. The most optimistic scenario indicates a rise of abandonment of only 0.7% by 2013 while in the worst case scenario, a growth up to 6.7% (Nowicki et al., 2007 cited Lasanta et al.2016). They comment that these rates diminish in the case production of biofules will rise or become scarce, if competitiveness among agricultural commodities will become higher and extensive farming will not benefit from public aid (Rienks, 2008; Verburg and Overmars, 2009 cited Lasanta et al.(2016). Also, special atention is required for areas with a high-risk of abandonment, which are the uplands with high altitudes, that usually coincide with land of High Nature Value ( HNV).

Presented in more general terms , Estel et al.( 2015) results confirm the widespread land-use change process in Europe, now hapenning now at a slower rate. They find out that recultivation of formerly unmanaged land is a growing trend in Eastern Europe, linked to the increase demand of food and biofuels. Their article was the only one to mention a scenario where if not acted upon, "farmland abandonment will lead to a displacement of land use to regions outside Europe(...)with strong environmental tradeoffs."(Laurance, Sayer, & Cassman, 2014 as cited Estel et al.(2015).

Terres et al (2015) article does not mention future general trends other than areas with higher risk of abandonment which they situated in Eastern Europe or in the baltic countries, but they write about the impact on biodiversity. Their notes are on how vegetation succesion 5

leads to "species-poor and more homogeneous vegetation types", with effects on both wild and domestic breeds of livestock or crops that are well adapted to the semi-natural habitats.

An impact which was not mention in the other studied articles as well, was further defragmentation of agricultural land (small scale mosaics of land) and their characteristic species. Moreover, all these will increase the risks of fire, especially where grazing areas act as firebreaks ( Peco et al., 2012 cited Terres et al., 2015) Since they used a specific typology, Kristensen et al.(2016) projection regards each category.

After analysing each of the case studies through activity level, three areas where determined (low activity <10%, medium 10-20% and high >20%). Then, the results were extrapolated at a european level, as trends for areas with the same characteristics. For the first one, the trend is continued agricultural use as well as an extensificatin in some areas. For the second one, the projected trend is abandonment, followed by a decline in the biodiversity level in former cultivated areas. In the case of the third, the main trend is of stability or decrease, which will lead to further deterioration of biodiversity areas already affected. Van der Sluis et al.( 2016) general projections support Kristensen et al.(2016) results, with mentions of a trend of decrease in biodiversity and landscape quality.

With regards to land use intensity, van der Sluis et al.( 2016) determined a trend of stabilising or even decrease. For deep rural, the trend was increase for most indicators, while in the peri-urban areas the trend is towards extensive farming due to the activity performed as a hobby or by non-active farmers. Regarding pesticide utilisation, a decrease across Western Europe is noticeable, where on the contrary, in southern and eastern part, an opposite trend had emerged.

Conclusionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2039;______________________________________________________

Farmland abandonment across Europe is a multifaceted process with effects on society, economy and environment alike. The extent of the phenomenon and the ways to assess it, got an increasing interest from the academia and public authorities in the last years, so numerous studies have been performed across Europe. But the whole proccess is mostly locally driven, with impacts on broader areas, therefore all research was done either locally or using local indicators, which cannot be applied in other circumstances. Moreover, various combinations of tools such as remote sensing, surveys, statistical analysis shape the results and further, the perspectives on the process.

It can be seen how the reviewed articles have an one-sided view of the process,using not only different methods, but also indicators and typologies and focusing on either drivers (Lasanta et al., 2016), triggers (van der Sluis et al., 2016), future trends (Kristensen et al.,2016) or on developing new methods (Terres et al.,2015 ; Estel et al., 2015).

While intensive effort is put on better evaluating the extent of farmland abandonment, their results are tangential or too little overlapped, to be able to cross-check or corroborate the outputs for the purpose of creating the foundation for a future policy framework, which is ironic, since policy is regarded as one of the external drivers who sets up the process of abandonment (Terres et al.,2015)

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Reviewed papers Lasanta, T., Arnáez, J., Pascual, N., Ruiz-Flaño, P., Errea, M. and Lana-Renault, N. (2016).

Space–time process and drivers of land abandonment in Europe. CATENA. Terres, J., Scacchiafichi, L., Wania, A., Ambar, M., Anguiano, E., Buckwell, A., Coppola, A., Gocht, A., Källström, H., Pointereau, P., Strijker, D., Visek, L., Vranken, L. and Zobena, A. (2015). Farmland abandonment in Europe: Identification of drivers and indicators, and development of a composite indicator of risk. Land Use Policy, 49, pp.20-34.

Estel, S., Kuemmerle, T., Alcántara, C., Levers, C., Prishchepov, A. and Hostert, P. (2015). Mapping farmland abandonment and recultivation across Europe using MODIS NDVI time series. Remote Sensing of Environment, 163, pp.312-325. van der Sluis, T., Pedroli, B., Kristensen, S., Lavinia Cosor, G. and Pavlis, E. (2016). Changing land use intensity in Europe – Recent processes in selected case studies. Land Use Policy, 57, pp.777-785.

Kristensen, S., Busck, A., van der Sluis, T. and Gaube, V. (2016). Patterns and drivers of farm-level land use change in selected European rural landscapes. Land Use Policy, 57, pp.786-799.

Other References McClure, S. (2013). Domesticated animals and biodiversity: Early agriculture at the gates of Europe and long-term ecological consequences. Anthropocene, 4, pp.57-68.

Lasanta, T., Nadal-Romero, E. and Arnáez, J. (2015). Managing abandoned farmland to control the impact of re-vegetation on the environment. The state of the art in Europe. Environmental Science & Policy, 52, pp.99-109. van Vliet, J., de Groot, H., Rietveld, P. and Verburg, P. (2015). Manifestations and underlying drivers of agricultural land use change in Europe. Landscape and Urban Planning, 133, pp.24-36.

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APPENDIX Learning Portofolio : Academic Writing How was it different to write in a popular science or academic style?

I think the first difference between these two types of writing is the target audiance of the papers. I noticed how the strength of a good scientific papers is in it`s structure, so a good trait of it is coherence. But when writing popular texts, then the focus should be on how the subject is presented, since the purpose is to engage the readers. In my case, the subject is not that well known, even though effects on society are being noticed by everyone. It surprised me to see that when we were discussing our paper`s subjects, there were quite a few who didn`t "know" about farmland abandonment or what it supposedly do. But when expanding the explanation to impacts and effects, things got clearer and everyone realised they were already aware of the phenomenon, but was considered just an side-effect of globalisation. So it mattered how I presented the information not the structure of the speech. In the case of my interviewed it was easier, since she studied political science and she was already engaged in the subject, so presenting the information didn`t required too much wrap-up.

Regarding semantics and data, of course academic writing is more demanding, since we have to back up all our statements with references, at least the quantitative ones. I would say that the more data an academic paper has, the more relevant it is, whereas in a popular one it might confuse the reader and lose their attention along the way.

What did you experience when writing as hard, demanding, inspiring or fun ?

The most demanding part of the procces was at the start, when we had to find our subject and then the focus on it. I knew i wanted something related to land use change and then when i started reading the available literature and found what I was interested in, the problem of what should I focus on came along, since all are interconnected and of course, important to better understand the complexity of the subject.

I wouldn`t say any part of the proccess of writing this paper was fun, to be honest. It was amusing at best, to compare the different opinions on limitations or advantages of their methods for example, because they all seemed complementary to each other, some of them overlaping in their results, regardless of the tools they used. Then it got really confusing when had to cross-check their opinions and their validity, since from one point on, some ideas would match perfectly with other`s speech, even though their opinions were already

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regarded as innacurate by them. So for me it actually showed best how the lack of collaboration at a broader level can affect the effectiveness of results.

The hard part was the actual writing. I would say about myself that I am better at writing than speaking if I have the time to put my ideas in order. It`s the same in my native tangue so any delay seems only natural to me. So I didn`t start the final paper until quite late, because i thought the structure and to know all paragraphs ideas was the most important thing to have so one could write a coherent paper. But then when i put down all in text citations i got lost in all the informations and as I said before, i got confused about their opinions and had to recheck everything. But I would assume this a beginner mistake and I expected to not do the same mistake in the future.

What goals will you set for yourself about writing within the Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programme about what you would like to develop and improve upon?

The main goal is to â&#x20AC;&#x2039;learn how to write academic papers. It seems that only througout this course I improved a lot on it, due to lectures and papers we had on how to do it. If I compare this paper with the one I did for the previous course I can say that I`m already much better at it. I really believe that all the guidelines we had, helped improving my writing. Still, it takes me a lot of time to organize everything, check the references and doublecheck for plagiarism. This is another thought that I always have in the back of my head.

So if I would have to set the goals they would be: 1. to write coherently with fluency between paragraphs and appropriate bridges in between ideas - the end of 1st year 2. to write the papers fast, with a proper structure and vocabulary - the end of 2nd year

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