Journal ArticleDOI
Abandonment of agricultural land: an overview of drivers and consequences
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TLDR
An overview of land abandonment, its driving forces and its consequences for landscape, biodiversity and humans is presented and it is suggested that farmland must be viewed in a context of multi-functionality to take advantage of ecosystem goods and services.Abstract:
Agricultural activities and their complex effects on nature conservation, and the services that ecosystems deliver to humans are controversial. We present an overview of land abandonment, its driving forces and its consequences for landscape, biodiversity and humans. A descriptive metaanalysis of independently published studies highlighted the fact that the abandonment of agricultural land is a phenomenon mostly driven by socio-economic factors such as immigration into areas where new economic opportunities are offered to rural people. Ecological drivers such as elevation and land mismanagement leading to soil erosion are of secondary importance. We identified the major problems related to abandonment of agricultural land and quantified their relative importance. In order of decreasing importance, they were biodiversity loss, increase of fire frequency and intensity, soil erosion and desertification, loss of cultural and/or aesthetic values, reduction of landscape diversity and reduction of water provision. The impacts of these problems were not equally relevant in all regions of the world. The abandonment of agricultural land may also benefit humans. The benefits include passive revegetation and active reforestation, water regulation, soil recovery, nutrient cycling and increased biodiversity and wilderness. In a world that is becoming less natural and more intensively exploited by humans, we suggest that (1) farmland must be viewed in a context of multi-functionality to take advantage of ecosystem goods and services, (2) at the global scale, the abandonment of agricultural land is mostly positive for humans and (3) there is a need for the implementation of policies based on the payments for environmental services that encourage human societies to reconcile agricultural use, nature conservation and ecological restoration.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Rewilding Abandoned Landscapes in Europe
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the perceptions of traditional agriculture in Europe and their influence in land management policies and argue that, contrary to the common perception, traditional agriculture practices were not environmentally friendly and that the standards of living of rural populations were low.
Journal ArticleDOI
Linkages between biodiversity attributes and ecosystem services: A systematic review
Paula A. Harrison,Pam Berry,Gillian Simpson,John R. Haslett,Malgorzata Blicharska,M. Bucur,Robert Dunford,Benis N. Egoh,Marina García-Llorente,Marina García-Llorente,Marina García-Llorente,Nicoleta Geamana,W. Geertsema,Els Lommelen,Linda Meiresonne,Francis Turkelboom +15 more
TL;DR: In this article, a systematic literature review was undertaken to analyse the linkages between different biodiversity attributes and 11 ecosystem services, and the majority of relationships between attributes and ecosystem services cited in the 530 studies were positive.
Journal ArticleDOI
Multiple successional pathways in human-modified tropical landscapes: New insights from forest succession, forest fragmentation and landscape ecology research
Víctor Arroyo-Rodríguez,Felipe P. L. Melo,Miguel Martínez-Ramos,Frans Bongers,Robin L. Chazdon,Jorge A. Meave,Natalia Norden,Bráulio A. Santos,Inara R. Leal,Marcelo Tabarelli +9 more
TL;DR: It is shown that secondary succession in tropical landscapes is a multifactorial phenomenon affected by a myriad of forces operating at multiple spatio‐temporal scales, and succession must be examined using more comprehensive explanatory models.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mapping farmland abandonment and recultivation across Europe using MODIS NDVI time series.
Stephan Estel,Tobias Kuemmerle,Tobias Kuemmerle,Camilo Alcántara,Christian Levers,Alexander V. Prishchepov,Alexander V. Prishchepov,Patrick Hostert,Patrick Hostert +8 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a methodology to map active and fallow land using MODIS Normalized Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series and provided the first European-wide map of the extent of abandoned farmland (cropland and grassland) and recultivation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Farmland abandonment: threat or opportunity for biodiversity conservation? A global review
TL;DR: This paper reviewed 276 published studies describing various effects of farmland abandonment on biodiversity and found that a study's geographic region, selected metrics, assessed taxa, and conservation focus significantly affected how those impacts were reported.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital
Robert Costanza,Rudolf de Groot,Stephen Farberk,Monica Grasso,Bruce Hannon,Karin E. Limburg,Shahid Naeem,José M. Paruelo,Robert Raskin,Paul Suttonkk,Marjan van den Belt +10 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies and a few original calculations, for the entire biosphere, the value (most of which is outside the market) is estimated to be in the range of US$16-54 trillion (10^(12)) per year, with an average of US $33 trillion per year.
Journal ArticleDOI
Global Consequences of Land Use
Jonathan A. Foley,Ruth DeFries,Gregory P. Asner,Carol C. Barford,Gordon B. Bonan,Stephen R. Carpenter,F. Stuart Chapin,Michael T. Coe,Michael T. Coe,Gretchen C. Daily,Holly K. Gibbs,Joseph H. Helkowski,Tracey Holloway,Erica A. Howard,Christopher J. Kucharik,Chad Monfreda,Jonathan A. Patz,I. Colin Prentice,Navin Ramankutty,Peter K. Snyder +19 more
TL;DR: Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.
TL;DR: In this article, the carbon sink capacity of the world’s agricultural and degraded soils is 50 to 66% of the historic carbon loss of 42 to 78 gigatons of carbon.
Journal ArticleDOI
Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions, and argue that a systematic analysis of local-scale land use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land use changes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Response of mean annual evapotranspiration to vegetation changes at catchment scale
TL;DR: In this article, a simple two-parameter model was developed that relates mean annual evapotranspiration to rainfall, potential evapOTranspiration, and plant-available water capacity.