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Considering the relevance of the agricultural sectors for the European countries' development, but also the volatile features of agriculture, with unforeseen risks induced by climate, ensuring durable economic progress is foremost for the companies. This paper aims to assess the associations of the key parties in corporate governance (directors, managers, advisers, and shareholders), employees and the independence level with the main outcomes and capacity/size of the European companies operating in agriculture, fishing, and aquaculture activities. Using a newly compiled and complex dataset of 3 184 active companies from Europe, provided by the ORBIS database, advanced modelling approaches were employed, based on the robust regression (RREG) and Gaussian Graphical Model (GGM). The main findings emphasised that: directors, managers, and advisors had a strong positive influence on the firms' size, boosting their turnover, and the shareholders' funds; advisors induced positive connections with the companies' liquidity; the number of employees exerted positive impacts on the firms' size and outcomes of these companies; the independence level exerted a negative impact on the firms' size and outcomes. Finally, specific measures must be addressed to primarily reconsider the number of directors and managers and the shareholders' participation in the ownership of these companies due to their unfavourable exerted effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-natural habitat creation in Europe is a tool to address habitat loss, caused by agricultural landscape simplification. Research on habitats is mostly conservation-centered, while studies on their delivery of multiple agro-ecosystem services are limited. However, knowledge about these habitats' suitability for production could make them a practical biodiversity mainstreaming tool. This paper identifies potential dually-beneficial (db) habitats for use in cereals, oilseed rape, and sunflowers, the three major EU arable field crops. They are often grown in simplified landscapes, where the need for improved biodiversity connectivity at landscape level is high and their integration expected to be most effective. The paper provides a qualitative survey of the db-habitats effects on agro-ecosystem services and disservices while addressing trade-offs and synergies thereby using an ecology-focused agro-ecosystem services and disservices framework. Four differently suitable db-habitat groups were identified: 1. Uncropped fields/subfield areas, 2. Managed fields/subfield areas, 3. Managed flower areas and 4. Managed margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In front of escalating resource limitations in agriculture, this study emphasizes the critical need for efficient crop cultivation. Focusing particularly on tomatoes, a staple in global diets, the research aims to sustenably enhance productivity. Recognizing productivity as a key economic indicator, the study highlights the pivotal role of energyefficient practices in addressing challenges posed by climate change and depleting natural resources. By optimizing energy use in agricultural processes, this research not only improves economic efficiency but also positions the sector for resilience and innovation in a resource-constrained environment. Through an in-depth analysis of data from Eurostat covering the 2014-2022 period, we trace the trends in greenhouse tomato cultivation across Europe, evaluating changes in cultivation areas and productivity. This research offers insights into how different European countries have adapted their agricultural practices in response to environmental and economic pressures and in the same time, it underscores the need for continued innovation and adaptation in agricultural practices to meet the demands of a growing global population under increasingly constrained environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mycotoxin contamination in animal feed is a significant point of concern within the European food supply network. These toxic secondary metabolites produced by fungi have the potential to contaminate feed and pose a risk of making their way into the human diet via animal products like meat, milk, and eggs. The consequences of mycotoxin contamination extend beyond animal health, affecting economies and public health, presenting complex issues for agricultural producers, regulatory bodies, and consumers. Even with stringent controls and surveillance in place, mycotoxins remain a persistent issue. This study provides updated findings on the prevalence of mycotoxins globally and specifically in Europe, with a focus on analyzing the incidence of ochratoxin A both worldwide and within European contexts. The dispersion of mycotoxina within a given region can have considerable economic consequences for the trade of animal feed, directing stakeholders toward making informed decisions about the types of analyses in which they should allocate more resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to redefine how farming occurs. Throughout history examples of technological advances have shown that less labour has been required on a farm while at the same time increasing the output of food production. However, an interesting observation is that as technology has improved the farming process and replaced workers, it has opened a new avenue known as diversification. This paper focuses specifically on the impact that AI will have on the future of farming in the European sector. The literature brings to light common trends that technological innovations have always decreased the number of workers required in the farming process while at the same time maximising efficiency. AI will also follow the same trend, however, instead of eliminating workers in the farming process soon, the present observations show that farmers will still require workers to work alongside AI. The reason for increased investments in AI is due to research data showing a decline in population growth in Europe and the struggling profitability of farmers. Thereby analysts believe that a labour shortage will occur, and industries will struggle to fill those skills requirements. A qualitative summary was done on artificial intelligence technologies' development impact on the labour of the agricultural sector of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural intensification has played an important role in the decline of biodiversity in farmland ecosystems. Habitat degradation has resulted in reduced edge effects. This has led to species loss, soil degradation, deflation and drying of arable land. Much of Europe is farmland, which has a significant impact on the continent's climate. Although the previous conditions cannot be fully restored, beetle banks, grasslands and hedgerows can be well integrated into the agricultural policy of the European Union. How do linear habitats affect the microclimate, biosphere and crops? An endemic farmland bird, the grey partridge (Perdix perdix) is an indicator of healthy farmland ecosystems. Their population has declined drastically in recent decades across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a substantial part of the European subsidy policy. However, this policy could not prevent the increasing displacement of small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises so far. The agriculture of the USA has experienced a systemic decline in small and medium-sized enterprises for decades and already negative consequences can be observed from this development. In Europe, the same tendency can be seen. To find a solution for small and medium-size enterprises we present our research that compares the subsidy mechanisms of the EU with that of the USA.The scope of this paper includes the examination of the development of small and medium-sized companies within the conditions of the current CAP and which steps in the development have been taken in the US agriculture. In order to identify which threats exist for the European agriculture, the influence of subsidy payments on the agricultural development is examined and assessed. The analysis reveals that the US agriculture has been dominated by industrialized farms due to the concentration development so far. Small and medium-sized companies hardly play a role in this system, which is geared towards continuously increasing efficiency. Thereby, negative side effects on the environment, climate, fauna, animal welfare and health etc. are accepted. According to the previous concentration process in European agriculture one cannot exclude the possibility that a further development towards a US-like situation in agriculture can be prevented. The results of the comparison indicate the need for changes of the EU policy to avoid a US-like evolution of the European agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture contributes to global warming mainly through the emission of methane and nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is particularly important, as it accounts for a significant share of total nitrogen emissions from arable land It is produced as a result of anaerobic microbiological changes of nitrogen introduced into the soil along with mineral fertilizers. Changes in weather patterns in response to climate change may significantly affect the efficiency of fertilizer nitrogen in agriculture, and, consequently, entail undesirable environmental effects. This issue is of particular importance in view of the dominant role that this fertilizer element plays in agriculture, and, on the other hand, due to the global environmental risk within the “nitrogen cycle”. The analysis, carried out in this paper indicates, that transformations of nitrogen compounds in the soil, caused predominantly by the climate condition, result in nitrogen release from the agricultural production area. The dispersion in the form of molecular nitrogen (N2) is mainly the result of denitrification processes. By this way over 50% of nitrogen lost from agriculture is dissipated from the agricultural land. From the agricultural point of view, denitrification is a process that limits the resources of available nitrogen, but from the environmental viewpoint, this process should be considered as a natural mechanism of environmental self-purification and water protection. Although it constitutes only about 25% of the total loss of this element the dilution of nitrogen from agricultural areas by leaching, is considered to be the most cumbersome for the water environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is an attempt to address the advantages and risks connected with the wave of financial globalisation, with a focus on its impact on financial policy in European agriculture. The aim of the paper is to identify the basic conditions of the functioning and change of the financial system of agriculture under the conditions of the globalisation of financial markets. Financial globalisation, also referred to as financial integration or openness, is understood as an increase in global ties and interdependences caused by capital flows. Potentially, globalisation can bring a lot of benefits, which are manifested in an acceleration of economic growth and decreased fluctuation in consumption, which should further improve the level of overall prosperity. On the other hand, however, internationalisation of financial flows entails a range of threats, including the possibility of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have some kind of energy-system transformation either planned or ongoing for various reasons, such as to curb carbon emissions or to compensate for the phasing out of nuclear energy. One important component of these transformations is the overall reduction in energy demand. It is generally acknowledged that the domestic sector represents a large share of total energy consumption in many countries. Increased energy efficiency is one factor that reduces energy demand, but behavioral approaches (known as “sufficiency”) and their respective interventions also play important roles. In this paper, we address citizens’ heterogeneity regarding both their current behaviors and their willingness to realize their sufficiency potentials—that is, to reduce their energy consumption through behavioral change. We collaborated with three Swiss cities for this study. A survey conducted in the three cities yielded thematic sets of energy-consumption behavior that various groups of participants rated differently. Using this data, we identified four groups of participants with different patterns of both current behaviors and sufficiency potentials. The paper discusses intervention types and addresses citizens’ heterogeneity and behaviors from a city-based perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fishing is probably one of the oldest economic activities in the history of humankind. Lakes, rivers and streams in Europe are important elements in the European landscape with a rich diversity of fish and other aquatic organisms. Artisanal fisheries have therefore been of great importance for the provision of food, but also animal feed, medicine, fertilizer and other needs. These fishermen had a deep knowledge about the waterscape and its biota. However, ethnoichthyology remains a small topic within contemporary ethnobiology in Europe. Our focus lies within northern Europe in the late medieval to modern period, but encompasses the wider area with some reference to earlier periods where informative. Method: We have reviewed a large amount of literature mainly on the relationship between man and fish in freshwaters from late medieval times (defined here as the fifteenth century) until the early twenty-first century. The main focus is on freshwater (including anadromous and catadromous) fish in northern Europe, the main area of study for both authors, though examples have been included from elsewhere to indicate the widespread importance of these fisheries. The review includes studies from various fields such as archaeology, ethnography, fish biology, geography, linguistics and osteology to map what has been studied of interest in ethnoichthyology. These data have been analysed and critically reviewed. Results: There are archaeozoological studies, studies of specialised fishers as well as artisanal fishing among the peasantry, research of folk taxonomies, fishing methods (including the use of poison) and gear, which are all of great interest for ethnoichthyology. There is also research on traditional preserving methods for fish as food and for other purposes. Of interest is the keeping of fish in wells, ponds and aquaria. However, there is still room for more research within many domains of ethnoichthyology. Conclusion: Humans have always utilized fish and other aquatic resources. Nonetheless, few ethnobiologists working within Europe are so far researching human-fish relationships. This paper demonstrates the range of research available, but also points to future studies. It is important to widen ethnobiological research in Europe to include fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper envisages to present a section of the European funds in agriculture dedicated to Romania after 2007 (the EU accession) and its formal integration into the CAP system - with a particular accent on the Measure 121 and its impact at the end of 2014. Based upon raw data provided following an official request, it shows the main indicators of the system. It is also an analysis of the efficiency of EU funds utilization in the system. The paper focuses on the result received from the authorities with responsibilities in the area, thus bringing into the academic debate the first comprehensive data set for the time being that have become available to researcher. Following the analysis done we realise that Measure 121 had a major interest on behalf of the potential beneficiaries, as proven by the value of financing requests submitted in the analysed period that have surpassed 330% of the total allocated value. Another conclusion that surges is the great number of cancelled contracts in the last six months of the analysed period which represent 29,82% of the total of cancelled projects, a high percentage if we take into consideration that we are at the end of the implementation period of financed investments. Basing on this analyze, our study tries to draw some useful conclusion for the next financing period . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Low-intensity farmland contributes to Urban Green Infrastructure in regard to connectivity.. • This study suggests an evidence-based planning approach to identify the potential spatial distribution of low-intensity farmland. • This paper presents an analytical methodology that is transparent, repeatable, and transferable to other European urban areas. Abstract In recent years, Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) has gained broad political support and has evolved to become a new research topic in the area of sustainable urban development. The focus has been largely on green urban structures, such as parks and urban forest. The role and contribution of farmland has often been neglected. This work wants to scrutinise the potential of farmland’s contribution to the basic conception of UGI, in particular, with regard to connectivity. It reports on three case studies from Southern Germany, in the peri-urban regions of the three largest and expanding cities of Bavaria: Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg. The spatial analysis we used is transparent, simple and repeatable. It is transferable to any European urban area. We use habitat suitability modelling to map the potential spatial distribution of low-intensity farmland, with emphasis on grassland systems. Based on these potential distributions, landscape indicators are used to analyse structural connectivity. Structural connectivity is used as a surrogate for functional connectivity, which supports ecological and abiotic processes and functions, but on the other hand characterises functional social connectivity, with respect to the accessibility of recreation. The results of this study suggest that farmland bears a great potential to contribute to UGI. The immediate surroundings of the cities do not just offer spatial potential but can enhance connectivity significantly. Based on these results some recommendations have been formulated to enable a better appreciation of farmland and farmers as partners for effectively developing strategies for UGI planning and sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European agriculture is a large importer of nutrients in the form of chemical fertilizers. Additionally, countries with livestock-intensive farming face problems with disposal of nutrients in animal manure. The availability of chemical fertilizers has changed farmers' past dependence on manure. Nowadays, despite its nutrient content, manure is sometimes considered as a waste product. However, if the characteristics of manure and other waste streams could be enhanced through processing, it could be transformed into an alternative bio-based fertilizer recycling the nutrients within the farming sector. This would also create opportunities for nutrient exchange between different European regions. However, a key question is what is needed for farmers to accept these products as replacements for their current chemical fertilizer use? In this paper, key attributes determining the acceptance of alternative bio-based fertilizer products are identified. Based on the identified attributes, a discrete choice experiment was designed to reveal farmers' preferences and Willingness-To-Pay for these attributes. Identical experiments were conducted in seven different European countries. The results indicate that farmers from the different countries have common preferences for concentrated products that have certainty in the nitrogen content and at a lower price than chemical fertilizer. Other attributes such as the presence of organic carbon, hygienization of the product and fast release of nutrients were only statistically significant in some countries. The results imply that a bio-based fertilizer similar to chemical fertilizers could be sold at around 65% of the price of mineral fertilizer. Additionally, we show which attributes industry should take into consideration when estimating the demand for new bio-based fertilizer products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agriculture has become a common form of urban land use in European cities linked to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits, as well as to diversified forms (from self-production allotments to high-tech companies). Social acceptance will determine the development of urban agriculture and specific knowledge on citizens’ perception is required in order to set the basis for policy-making and planning. The ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture can be determinant in this process. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the social acceptance and the perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in the city of Bologna (Italy), as an example of a Southern European city. In particular, we evaluated the preferences for urban land uses, for different typologies of urban agriculture and for the resulting products, the perceived provision of ecosystem services and the willingness to engage in new initiatives. A survey that investigated these topics (including open questions, closed questions and Likert-scale evaluation) was performed on the citizens of Bologna (n = 380) between October and November 2016. Results showed that urban agriculture is widely accepted by the inhabitants of Bologna, particularly regarding vegetable production. Although intensive farming systems were the least preferred forms to be implemented in Bologna, citizens highly accepted a large variety of urban agriculture goods, with preference for those obtained from plants as compared to animal products. The willingness-to-pay for urban food products was mostly the same as for conventional ones, although the participants recognised the social values, proximity and quality of the former. Socio-cultural ecosystem services were perceived as more valuable than environmental ones. Policy-making recommendations can be extracted from the results to facilitate the development of urban agriculture plans and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is one response to the challenges faced by agriculture due to climate change. As with other sustainability transitions, technological innovation is highlighted as playing a critical role, however, the adoption and diffusion of technological innovations in OECD countries is slow. The aim of this paper is to identify key socio-economic barriers, in terms of supply and demand, that inhibit the adoption and diffusion of CSA technological innovations in Europe. To achieve this aim, a theoretical framework is constructed based on a literature review of socio-economic barriers effecting adoption and diffusion. This framework is explored with data from semi-structured interviews with CSA technology providers and members of agricultural supply chains, such as farmers associations and consumer goods producers (the end-users of the technology). Data was collected on the barriers they experienced, with interviews conducted in the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Italy. This data was thematically coded and categorised to identify key barrier typologies. The results demonstrate that barriers exist on both the demand (user) and supply (technology provider) sides. The paper provides recommendations for increasing the adoption and diffusion of CSA technological innovations, as well as implications for the CSA and innovation literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While non-operating agricultural and absentee forest landowners across the U.S. and Europe are an important group of landowners, our understanding of them remains relatively limited. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review on these landowners to encapsulate a current lay of the land in terms of what we know about these landowners and move the dialogue on this topic forward. Eighty-one articles are identified in our search of empirical literature. For each of the landowner types, we discuss their demographics and the three primary themes that emerged related to land management: participation in land management decisions, attitudes regarding land use and ownership, and resource needs in working with these landowners. For agricultural non-operating landowners, we find limited participation in land management decisions, particularly among women, a variety of individual and social factors play a role in involvement, and while they have pro-conservation attitudes, implementation of conservation practices is more limited. Absentee forest landowners we find are more willing to use management plans, yet less willing to engage in active management and risk reduction. These landowners have a range of attitudes regarding land use, with studies highlighting recreation, conservation, and profit motivations. Our review concludes with identifying specific needs for more research and outreach on these landowners. • Systematic review of 81 papers on non-operating agricultural and absentee forest landowners. • Agricultural landowners have limited participation in land management decisions. • Forest landowners use management plans more than active management practices. • More information and outreach, for women landowners in particular, is needed. • We need additional research (especially qualitative) focused on these two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-communist countries of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) when implementing agricultural and conservation policies, face other challenges than Western European countries: (1) specific institutional design for each, developed on the remnants of totalitarian system causing difficulties for transposing directives; (2) different integration of Natura 2000 network into national protected area governance resulting in slow elaboration of the management plans; (3) farming landscapes were better preserved than in Western Europe, but lacking the continuity of extensive farming so large areas of conservation and (4) formal protection of sites, lacking in many cases financial support. This paper summarizes: the historical background of the last century that changed the farming landscapes of the CEE countries and the challenges in the management of protected areas in an unsteady socio-economic and political context. The results are focusing on the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Two main conclusions are proposed. First, socialism and capitalism slowly abolished family farming, causing people to become disconnected from the landscape - a key element in conservation oriented grassland management. Second, the gaps of knowledge on different aspects of policy implementation sabotage the results of conservation initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural sector je characterized by the fact that there is a high level of risk. It was always this case, but in the last years, there is a tendency of the increasing of the risk. The ability of early detection and effective management of the risks is an integral part of the strategic management of every agricultural organization. The paper presents the procedure and outcomes of the questionnaire survey aimed at the occurrence of the risk factors and approaches to the risk management in the enterprises of the primary agricultural production in Slovakia. The survey is focused on the individual character of the risk. The results of the survey point out the fact, that Slovakian farmers perceive the price risk, production or income risk as the most important risk factors, and the diversification as a most important strategy of the risk management. The most significant positive correlations were found between the land size and the perception of the price risk importance, between the number of years in office and the perception of the price risk importance. Concerning the production or income risk, the significant positive correlation was found in the legal form of business. As the most important, there was evaluated the risk perceived by the self-employed farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GCMs) simulate different realizations of possible future climates at global scale under contrasting scenarios of land-use and greenhouse gas emissions. Such data require several additional processing steps before it can be used to drive impact models. Spatial downscaling, typically by regional climate models (RCM), and bias-correction are two such steps that have already been addressed for Europe. Yet, the errors in resulting daily meteorological variables may be too large for specific model applications. Crop simulation models are particularly sensitive to these inconsistencies and thus require further processing of GCM-RCM outputs. Moreover, crop models are often run in a stochastic manner by using various plausible weather time series (often generated using stochastic weather generators) to represent climate time scale for a period of interest (e.g. 2000 ± 15 years), while GCM simulations typically provide a single time series for a given emission scenario. To inform agricultural policy-making, data on near- and medium-term decadal time scale is mostly requested, e.g. 2020 or 2030. Taking a sample of multiple years from these unique time series to represent time horizons in the near future is particularly problematic because selecting overlapping years may lead to spurious trends, creating artefacts in the results of the impact model simulations. This paper presents a database of consolidated and coherent future daily weather data for Europe that addresses these problems. Input data consist of daily temperature and precipitation from three dynamically downscaled and bias-corrected regional climate simulations of the IPCC A1B emission scenario created within the ENSEMBLES project. Solar radiation is estimated from temperature based on an auto-calibration procedure. Wind speed and relative air humidity are collected from historical series. From these variables, reference evapotranspiration and vapour pressure deficit are estimated ensuring consistency within daily records. The weather generator ClimGen is then used to create 30 synthetic years of all variables to characterize the time horizons of 2000, 2020 and 2030, which can readily be used for crop modelling studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forty percent of the EU land area is currently considered to be agriculturally managed (utilised agricultural area - UAA - Eurostat Agricultural Census 2010), and attention to the environmental performance of farming practices is growing. To determine the performance of agricultural practices, farm-scale monitoring programmes are required but their implementation is hampered by a number of difficulties such as the identification of broadly applicable indicators appropriate for different biogeographic locations, and the evaluation of the effectiveness and costs of different monitoring approaches. In this paper, we focus on the costs of farm-scale biodiversity monitoring, presenting results from a Europe-wide cost data collection in the EU FP7 BioBio Project. Firstly, we present an analytical assessment of resources consumed by the research units and a cost estimation for the measurement of six biodiversity-related parameters: farm habitats, vegetation, wild bees and bumblebees, spiders, earthworms and farm management. Thereafter, we estimate a standardised cost for an ordinary measurement of the six parameters at farm-scale. In doing so, we highlight the cost differences between three strategies involving different potential actors (professional agencies, farmers, volunteers). This analysis demonstrates that producing reliable data on monitoring costs requires a large sample pool of farms and farm types, as was the case in the BioBio project. The cost standardisation allowed us to estimate a cost for biodiversity monitoring ranging between €2700 and €8200 per farm, depending on the chosen strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis and support structure of the beekeeping sector in the European Union countries was analyzed. The level of support for this sector of agriculture in the years to come increased and in the years 2017-2019 is 72 million EUR per year. The amount of support beekeeping depends mainly on the number of hives. The average value of support for bee colony in most countries ranges from 4.35 to 4.63 EUR per year. The amount of support expressed as the equivalent of beekeeping honey indicating little relevance of this action, since the value of the support is equal to the EU average of 0.65 kg multiflorous honey, that varies from 0.3 to 1.33 kg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct payments to European farmers through the common agricultural policy are extremely important to them. The CAP has undergone countless changes over time and has been modified in the circumstances. Lately, the focus has been mainly on decoupled support, to the detriment of coupled support and rumours across the European Union as to whether it would be the last time they would assist by direct payments to farmers, fueling farmers' anxiety in especially those from countries have recently joined the European Union. Financing the agricultural sector is a necessity and a future, as the reduction of the CAP budget after 2020 is not a viable solution in this respect, which will lead to a decline in all aspects of the sector. The statistical processing of data provided by the European Commission demonstrates, among other things, the defamation of the most recent countries that have joined the European Union, such as Bulgaria or Romania, but especially Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural land abandonment is an increasing problem in Europe. The Comunitat Valenciana Region (Spain) is one of the most important citrus producers in Europe suffering this problem. This region characterizes by small sized citrus plots and high spatial fragmentation which makes necessary to use Very High-Resolution images to detect abandoned plots. In this paper spectral and Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix (GLCM)-based textural information derived from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are used to map abandoned citrus plots in Oliva municipality (eastern Spain). The proposed methodology is based on three general steps: (a) extraction of spectral and textural features from the image, (b) pixel-based classification of the image using the Random Forest algorithm, and (c) assignment of a single value per plot by majority voting. The best results were obtained when extracting the texture features with a 9 × 9 window size and the Random Forest model showed convergence around 100 decision trees. Cross-validation of the model showed an overall accuracy of the pixel-based classification of 87% and an overall accuracy of the plot-based classification of 95%. All the variables used are statistically significant for the classification, however the most important were contrast, dissimilarity, NIR band (720 nm), and blue band (620 nm). According to our results, 31% of the plots classified as citrus in Oliva by current methodology are abandoned. This is very important to avoid overestimating crop yield calculations by public administrations. The model was applied successfully outside the main study area (Oliva municipality); with a slightly lower accuracy (92%). This research provides a new approach to map small agricultural plots, especially to detect land abandonment in woody evergreen crops that have been little studied until now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Land change process type had a significant impact on interpretation consistency. • The number of available images had no significant effect. • Absence of change of non-agricultural land was most consistently interpreted. • Land abandonment, reforestation and agricultural expansion were least consistent. Large-scale land change maps are essential to support policies addressing land transformations. Calibration and validation of large-scale land change maps require reference data that are commonly acquired by visual interpretation of remotely sensed images. However, visual interpretation itself is prone to error. Little is known about factors influencing the quality and consistency of changes detected by visual interpretation. This paper reports on an experiment assessing the effect of the number of very high resolution images and land change process types on the consistency of visual interpretations. The experiment involved 48 sites scattered over Europe for which 18 individuals interpreted very high resolution images, which were provided via Google Earth. Land change process type was found to have a significant impact on the consistency of visual interpretations, while the marginal effect of the number of images was not significant. Absence of change on non-agricultural land was interpreted with high consistency. On the contrary, agricultural land abandonment and reforestation were the least consistent in their interpretation. We conclude that for increased efficiency, resources allocated to acquire reference data by visual interpretation should be adjusted based on the expected type of land change. Interpretation of agricultural land abandonment, reforestation and agricultural land expansion require most efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]