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

Changes in land systems generate many sustainability challenges Identifying more sustainable land-use alternatives requires solid theoretical foundations on the causes of land-use/cover changes Land system science is a maturing field that has produced a wealth of methodological innovations and empirical observations on land-cover and land-use change, from patterns and processes to causes We take stock of this knowledge by reviewing and synthesizing the theories that explain the causal mechanisms of land-use change, including systemic linkages between distant land-use changes, with a focus on agriculture and forestry processes We first review theories explaining changes in land-use extent, such as agricultural expansion, deforestation, frontier development, and land abandonment, and changes in land-use intensity, such as agricultural intensification and disintensification We then synthesize theories of higher-level land system change processes, focusing on: (i) land-use spillovers, including land sparing and rebound effects with intensification, leakage, indirect land-use change, and land-use displacement, and (ii) land-use transitions, defined as structural non-linear changes in land systems, including forest transitions Theories focusing on the causes of land system changes span theoretically and epistemologically disparate knowledge domains and build from deductive, abductive, and inductive approaches A grand, integrated theory of land system change remains elusive Yet, we show that middle-range theories – defined here as contextual generalizations that describe chains of causal mechanisms explaining a well-bounded range of phenomena, as well as the conditions that trigger, enable, or prevent these causal chains –, provide a path towards generalized knowledge of land systems This knowledge can support progress towards sustainable social-ecological systems

/pdf/middle-range-theories-of-land-system-change-79oih7ru25.pdf

Middle-range theories of land system change

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ddi.12778

Where are Europe's last primary forests?

A new European Landscape Classification (LANMAP): A transparent, flexible and user-oriented methodology to distinguish landscapes

Land-use changes and land policies evolution in China’s urbanization processes

Supporting Information to Transitions in European land-management regimes between 1800 and 2010

The implementation of the Landscape Atlas of Flanders in the integrated spatial planning

Het klimaat verandert en zet Vlaanderen onder druk. De voorbije jaren lag de focus in het klimaatdiscours vooral op mitigatie. Maar nu we het klimaatprobleem beter begrijpen, treedt adaptatie stilaan op de voorgrond. Hoe gaan we om met de gevolgen van klimaatverandering? Wat zijn de klimaateffecten waar we in Vlaanderen rekening mee kunnen en zullen houden? Hoe gaan we om met de klimaatimpacten en welke kansen kunnen we benutten? In het boek Klimaat in Vlaanderen als ruimtelijke uitdaging staat de zoektocht naar adaptatiestrategieen voor de Vlaamse ruimtelijke structuur, ontwerpend onderzoek en een aanzet to beleidsaanbevelingen centraal.

Veerle Van Eetvelde

Papers

Supporting Information to Transitions in European land-management regimes between 1800 and 2010

The implementation of the Landscape Atlas of Flanders in the integrated spatial planning

Klimaat in Vlaanderen als ruimtelijke uitdaging

Analyzing the perception of water surfaces in urban landscapes using eye tracking

Integrating cultural themes in landscape typologies.