Search

Reversing the decline of biodiversity in European agricultural landscapes is urgent. We suggest eight measures addressing politics, economics, and civil society to instigate transformative changes in agricultural landscapes. We emphasize the need for a well-informed society and political measures promoting sustainable farming by combining food production and biodiversity conservation.

On results undertaken studies systematization is carried out and in theory - methodological positions are deep on this basis practical recommendations are offered in relation to basic directions of ecological optimization of the use of earth-resource potential erosive dangerous agrolandscape by working and development of theoretical and applied bases of the adaptive-landscape systems of agriculture, newest systems of land-tenure, aimed at the rational use and protection of agricultural land, differentiated adaptation of technological means to soil-landscape-climatic factors and economic conditions of modern agricultural.The research was aimed at identifying the latest approaches to the organization of modern land use, which will necessitate the development of farming and land use systems on an ecological and landscape basis, given the different levels of intensification and resource provision, which in turn requires the improvement of existing and development of new components and the whole complex of agricultural systems, in particular in the context of climate change, risks of water and wind erosion and desertification.Many years of domestic experience in developing the scientific basis for the organization and management of agricultural land use, taking into account the basic principles of the concept of sustainable development shows that land management design based on landscape-ecological approach to the organization of agricultural land use is quite capable of becoming a link. unified system of theory and practice of organization of ecologically balanced land use at all levels.The principles of designing the organization of the territory of erosively dangerous sloping agrolandscapes for the development of soil protection adaptive-landscape system of agriculture on sloping lands (theoretical and methodological principles of landscape-adaptive land management, methodological approaches to substantiate land management projects on a landscape-ecological basis).

Abstract Soil hydrology has deep Russian roots, which are primarily related to the theory of soil hydrological constants and their practical application. These constants have been used to assess the hydrological soil conditions in stationary observations, for which attempts to arrange regular hydrological observations in the landscape faced impracticable complexity of work and calculations and provided unreliable quantitative predictions. At present, there are new opportunities for experimental research, digital analysis, and prediction of hydrological indicators of soils in the landscape. A new quantitative approach to the use of digital technologies for monitoring soil water and temperature in the soils of agricultural landscapes, their dynamics, and their probabilistic calculations has been developed. Based on the soil map, it is proposed to create an information and measurement system with the studied thermal and hydrophysical characteristics of soils using mathematical models to calculate the dynamics of moisture and temperature for given periods and conditions of different availability of heat and precipitation, which allows us to quantify the availability of moisture reserves in the soils of the agricultural landscape. This system of observations, assessment, and forecast includes the use of modern technologies for determining soil water content and temperature, the adaptation of predictive physically based models for calculating the dynamics of moisture reserves depending on the availability of precipitation and conditions at the lower boundary of soil profiles. The paper deals with the hydrological analysis of soils by the example of the agricultural landscape of the Zelenograd station of the Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute in the village of El’digino, Pushkino district, Moscow oblast.

The aim of the research is to study the effect of multipurpose compost on the agrochemical indicators of sod-podzolic soil and the productivity of field crop rotation in reclaimed agricultural landscapes of the humid zone. Methodology and methods of research. The studies were carried out at an experimental area in the Tver region in 2013–2019 on a drained soddy-podzolic gley soil. Multipurpose compost was applied for sowing spring wheat at a dose of 12 t/ha, which is N300P180K120. Subsequently, the aftereffect of compost on soil properties and crop productivity in the crop rotation was studied: spring wheat – spring rapeseed (for green manure) – winter rye - oats with over-sowing of grasses – a mixture of 1–3 years of use. Grain crop rotation was deployed in time. Results. It was found that the level of mobile phosphorus increased by 7.4–23 %, exchangeable potassium – by 6.8–26.5 %. In areas with a low content of nutrients, the accumulation of mobile phosphorus (in the eluvial-transit variant of the northern slope) and exchangeable potassium (in the transit northern slope) increased by 23.6 and 26.5 %, respectively. On variants of the experiment with a high content of nutrients, their content decreased slightly over seven years. The amount of easily hydrolyzable nitrogen during the rotation of the crop rotation decreased by 13.4–57.2 %. The content of organic matter increased by 6.7–11.9 % (rel.). Soil acidity (pHKCl) during the rotation of the crop rotation increased by 0.03–0.23 units. The greatest acidification of the soil solution was noted in the transit-accumulative variant of the northern slope (by 0.23 units). It was found that the use of multipurpose compost contributed to an increase in crop yield on average per rotation by 1.6–13.2 c/ha of feed units. The maximum yield increase (44%) was obtained in the eluvial-transit and transit variants of the southern slope. Scientific novelty. The dependence of agrochemical indicators of sod-podzolic soil and crop productivity on the use of multipurpose compost in individual agromicrolandscapes has been established.

The location, size, and structure of the farmlands and hydraulic systems built by the Indigenous inhabitants of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain, remain unknown. This hampers our ability to understand how they organized agricultural production and how European settlers transformed local landscapes to build commercial plantations in the late fifteenth century. This paper combines an analysis of archival sources with the study of agricultural landscapes and practices to identify and describe the fields that were employed by the first colonists of Aguimes and Temisas, and to derive information about the location, design, and management of the pre-Hispanic farmlands.

This paper presents an original approach for identifying and mapping agricultural landscapes that are highly representative of different biogeographical and natural settings and likely to be tradit...

Environmental policies that require native vegetation conservation can be challenging to implement, especially in productive agricultural landscapes. In Brazil, the Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law mandates ‘Legal Reserves’, protected native vegetation that landowners must retain on their properties. If landowners do not have the required minimum amount of native vegetation on their properties (the Legal Reserve ‘target’), they must either restore vegetation on the same property to meet the target, or compensate by protecting existing vegetation or restoring it on another property, ideally in ecologically equivalent areas. Here, we evaluate how different strategies (on-site/off-site protection and/or restoration), and different requirements for ecological equivalence when off-site strategies are used, affect the ability to achieve Legal Reserve targets, while minimising the need to restore native vegetation on productive farmland. We used a novel iterative tool to build scenarios that reflect different combinations of strategies to meet the minimum conservation target under different requirements for ecological equivalence, and compared their ability to achieve the target and their likely cost. The Atlantic Forest was the only biome where it was not possible to achieve the Legal Reserve target by protection of existing native vegetation, even when ecological equivalence rules were relaxed. As a consequence, vegetation restoration is required in this biome. Directing this required restoration to pasturelands that are less-suitable for agriculture allowed the target to be achieved in all states of Brazil, as long as only minimal ecological equivalence was required; however, for most states, the need to restore native vegetation on productive areas on farmlands could still be avoided while requiring medium to high ecological equivalence. These findings show the potential for moderate ecological equivalence to be achieved across most of Brazil in a cost-effective way and without impairing productive lands when seeking to meet the Legal Reserve targets.

The main stages of the formation of ecological paradigms of environmental management are considered, the fundamental role of V.V. Dokuchaev ideas and the importance of following V.I. Vernadskiy works in their development are shown. The role of scientists of the Club of Rome in the development of the ideology of sustainable development and its controversial perception by the world scientific community is reflected. The analysis of the existing paradigms, in particular of the co-evolutionary paradigm, and its implementation in the theory and practice of adaptive-landscape farming systems is given. The priority tasks for its improvement are defined. Further prospects for its development are considered in the framework of the proposed constructive-biospheric paradigm of environmental management, which implies the creation of a network of agricultural landscapes (agricultural, water, land reclamation, agro-industrial, rural forestry, livestock, residential) in compliance with the ecological status of the territory. The grouping of ecological functions of the landscape and mechanisms of their transformation into socio-economic functions are considered as tools for landscape-ecological planning and design.

La Mixteca Alta es una región natural y cultural de importancia mundial. La agricultura en la región reconoce serias limitantes ambientales, como lluvias escasas e irregulares, estación de crecimiento corta, y poca extensión de suelos con buena calidad en términos de profundidad, fertilidad y pendiente, estos factores han influido para que las comunidades mixtecas hayan creado diversos paisajes agrícolas, entre los que destacan las terrazas y los lamabordos. El objetivo de este trabajo fue identificar y proponer una clasificación de los paisajes agrícolas en una zona de la Mixteca Alta, a través la interpretación de imágenes de satélite, entrevistas con agricultores, y recorridos de campo. Localmente los sistemas agrícolas se diferencian por la forma del terreno, la modificación del relieve y la disponibilidad de agua. Se identificaron seis paisajes: el valle de temporal, el valle de riego, los valles secundarios, las laderas de temporal, las laderas de riego y las terrazas agrícolas o lamabordos. Cada uno se distingue por un grupo de cultivos de los cuales el maíz aparece como cultivo dominante, excepto en las laderas de riego, que reconoce un sistema de cultivo diferenciado para cada paisaje. Estos paisajes son producto de la interacción entre las comunidades y la geodiversidad, son parte de la identidad de las comunidades mixtecas. Su diversidad tiene un gran valor cultural e histórico, basado en los conocimientos tradicionales involucrados en sus transformaciones.

The increasing interest in the protection of the agricultural landscape as a category of heritage can be observed both in the growing number of globally recognized agricultural landscapes and in the development of new legal and institutional tools for their protection. The multifunctionality of agriculture, involving the multiplicity of interests and actors, engenders the questions of how and who manages the heritage agricultural landscapes at the local level? The research aims to provide an empirical model for the identification and evaluation of the local governance models used in the management of multifunctional agricultural landscapes. It focuses on two heritage agricultural landscapes in Italy and bases on field observations, semi-structured in-depth interviews with the local stakeholders and comparative analysis of the case studies. The research draws the map of interaction between the local stakeholders. It outlines the crucial role played by the local governing bodies in the management of heritage agricultural landscapes, involving several administrative and sociocultural units.

The status of populations of the Demoiselle Crane Anthropoides virgo (Linnaeus, 1758), more than other crane species, depends on changes in agricultural landscapes as economic development affected almost the entire species breeding range in the steppes and semi-deserts of Eurasia. Large-scale and intensive expansion of agricultural landscapes in the USSR in the 1950s–1960s, accompanied by a complex of limiting factors, caused a sharp decline in Demoiselle Crane numbers and redistribution within the breeding range. In the 1970s–1980s this species, thanks to its high ecological and ethological flexibility, took advantage of the agricultural landscapes increase due to the mass transition to breeding on cultivated fields. After the USSR collapse in 1991, the Demoiselle Crane reaction to the withdrawal of a huge area of fields and pastures from economic use in different parts of the species distribution proved to be ambiguous. The decrease in numbers in the south, the west, and the east of the distribution was compensated by its increase or a stable status in the central and northern parts of the breeding range. As a result, the world population as a whole changed insignificantly from 200 000–240 000 to 170 000–220 000 individuals.

In peri-urban areas ecosystem services (ES), such as food and biomass production, water regulation and nutrient cycling, are influenced by various increasing demands for food, recreation and housing. Spatial development policies address these demands by increasing housing and commercial site areas on the expense of agricultural lands. In the fragmented peri-urban landscapes the analysis of ES trade-off and synergies supports planners and decision makers to account for the provision of ES and the interrelations between them. Therefore, the objective of this work is to examine how ES trade-off analysis can support applying peri-urban spatial policy. The aim is to analyse the spatial distribution of ES and their level of provision and identify ES synergies and trade-offs in relation to a spatial (development) plan. Because peri-urban ES provided by agricultural lands are linked to soils, soils are included in a spatial analysis of ES trade-offs as location factor. Peri-urban municipalities of Wroclaw in Poland are taken as a case study to analyse interactions between the following ES: food provision, biomass production, water regulation, nutrient cycling, physical recreation, aesthetic features of agricultural landscapes. The correlation analysis results show that the biggest trade-off occurs between the aesthetic features and the food provision, while the biggest synergies exist between biomass and food provision, as well as between recreational potential and nutrient cycling. The hotspot and principal component analysis results reveal a trade-off relation between built-up areas and Natura 2000 sites, generating hotspots of ES provision. We conclude that ES interactions need to be carefully managed, following the integration of different policy fields at regional and local levels, to sustain ES provision at peri-urban areas.

We provide information on the diversity of anurans from agroforestry systems in the Colombian Amazon. This area is inserted at the tropical rainforest ecosystem and consists mainly of secondary for...

The ranging behaviour of raptors in human-altered environments, such as agricultural and suburban landscapes, is becoming increasingly important for conservationists in the context of unprecedented high rates of anthropogenic land use change. We studied the movement ecology of adult Long-crested Eagles Lophaetus occipitalis fitted with geographic positioning system transmitters in an agricultural landscape in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. Mean home ranges (± SD) of males and females estimated using the autocorrelated kernel density estimator (AKDE) method were 608 ± 552 ha (n = 5) and 664 ± 844 ha (n = 4), respectively. Core areas (KDEhref 50%) were estimated as 80 ± 38 ha and 39 ± 20 ha for males and females, respectively. We also recorded exploratory behaviour (in the form of long excursions) in two of the birds, of up to 49 km from the centre of their home range. The relatively small home ranges reported in this study are suggestive of productive foraging habitats whereby Long-crested Eagles can meet their energy requirements without having to travel long distances to obtain resources. Consistent with predictions, non-breeding male and female Long-crested Eagles showed similar ranging behaviour, which includes occasional exploratory behaviour.

The analysis of various ways of agricultural land assessment is presented. Disadvantages and limitations of the soil-ecological index application are shown. The necessity of differentiation and expansion of assessment indicators in conditions of agriculture intensification is justified. The experience of agroecological assessment, typology and classification of agricultural landscapes and soils for projecting the adaptive landscape farming systems is discussed. It is suggested that this experience and the existing databases of soil research in Russia should be used to create a system of integrated agricultural land assessment. As a starting point for its creation, it is necessary to formalize the assessment requirements in the form of a register of biological requirements of rops and cultivars and a register of agricultural technologies. In accordance with these requirements, a register of models for assessing agricultural lands by their agroecological groups within the provinces of natural and agricultural zones should be developed. The methodology of the development of registers of agroecological types of land and indicators for their economic efficiency for extensive, normal, and intensive agricultural technologies is considered.

Few countries are using space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to operationally produce national-scale maps of their agricultural landscapes. For the past ten years, Canada has integrated C-ban...

Population trends of the Blue Crane Anthropoides paradiseus were monitored by volunteers participating in Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcounts (CAR) in the Overberg and Swartland agricultural regions o...

Efficiency in agricultural food production has long been in focus and this has affected the spatial structure of agricultural land use. One outcome has been extensive criticism based on a wide range of negative consequences, such as for biodiversity, accessibility, cultural heritage, and aesthetics. In line with the European Landscape Convention (ELC), management of people’s everyday landscapes is important. In Norway, agricultural landscapes are the ‘everyday landscape’ for a large proportion of the population. The aim of the article is to contribute to the understanding of landscape changes perceived as positive or negative by the inhabitants. The authors focused on grain-crop dominated landscapes and the impact of smaller non-crop elements on people’s landscape preferences. They administered a photo-based questionnaire using manipulated photos to assess preferences for different agricultural landscapes. Additionally, people’s perceived objectives for the agricultural sector and agriculture’s primary functions were assessed. The results documented positive perceptions of added landscape elements and that people were both aware of and agreed on the multifunctional role of agriculture. The authors conclude that if the public’s preferences are to be taken into consideration, such as during policymaking, it is important to maintain various landscape elements in the large-scale grain field landscapes of Norway.

Agricultural land use systems have been optimized for producing provisioning ecosystem services (ES) in the past few decades, often at the expense of regulating and cultural services. Research has focused mainly on the supply side of ES and related trade-offs, but the demand side for regulatory services remains largely neglected. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of participatory geographic information system (PGIS) methods for demand assessment in larger rural and agrarian contexts by identifying spatially explicit demand patterns for ES, thereby enlarging the body of participatory approaches to ES-based land use management. Accordingly, we map, assess, and statistically and spatially analyze different demands for five ES by different stakeholder groups in agricultural landscapes in three case studies. The results are presented in a stakeholder workshop and prerequisites for collaborative ES management are discussed. Our results show that poor correlation exists between stakeholder groups and demands for ES; however, arable land constitutes the highest share of the mapped area of demands for the five ES. These results have been validated by both the survey and the stakeholder workshop. Our study concludes that PGIS represents a useful tool to link demand assessments and landscape management systematically, especially for decision support systems.

Land-use practices such as agriculture can impact mosquito vector breeding ecology, resulting in changes in disease transmission. The typical breeding habitats of Africa's second most important malaria vector Anopheles funestus are large, semipermanent water bodies, which make them potential candidates for targeted larval source management. This is a technical workflow for the integration of drone surveys and mosquito larval sampling, designed for a case study aiming to characterise An. funestus breeding sites near two villages in an agricultural setting in Côte d'Ivoire. Using satellite remote sensing data, we developed an environmentally and spatially representative sampling frame and conducted paired mosquito larvae and drone mapping surveys from June to August 2021. To categorise the drone imagery, we also developed a land cover classification scheme with classes relative to An. funestus breeding ecology. We sampled 189 potential breeding habitats, of which 119 (63%) were positive for the Anopheles genus and nine (4.8%) were positive for An. funestus. We mapped 30.42 km(2) of the region of interest including all water bodies which were sampled for larvae. These data can be used to inform targeted vector control efforts, although its generalisability over a large region is limited by the fine-scale nature of this study area. This paper develops protocols for integrating drone surveys and statistically rigorous entomological sampling, which can be adjusted to collect data on vector breeding habitats in other ecological contexts. Further research using data collected in this study can enable the development of deep-learning algorithms for identifying An. funestus breeding habitats across rural agricultural landscapes in Côte d'Ivoire and the analysis of risk factors for these sites

The first attempt to build wind protection belts on the territory of Bulgaria dates back to the mid-twentieth century. At present, plantings are mature and perform to a great extent their function. However, in order to continue their positive role on agricultural landscapes they should be improved, current planned requirements reviewed, and factors that have the greatest impact on their sustainability analyzed. Unstable climate processes are one of the key parameters that change growth conditions, as a result, setting new requirements for these living technical facilities is necessary. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the past experience and create guidelines for planning shelterbelts in accordance with climate change and other modern trends. An examination of the proposed areas examines the construction of wind protection belts, types of green system-based structures, and optimal species composition. Agricultural landscape science structures the arguments for this chapter and aids in piecing together the recommendations.

Sustainable agricultural landscapes seek to improve environmental, societal and economic outcomes locally and internationally. They depend on functionally biodiverse agricultural systems, i.e., systems that include diversity in plants and/or crops and maintain productive function. These systems are variably defined and are not adequately or consistently represented or ensured across agricultural landscapes. The variability results in inconsistent productive function, and minimally biodiverse agricultural systems and landscapes that degrade the environment, preventing consistent increases in functional biodiverse systems across farming landscapes and impeding long-term societal and economic benefit. The article answers the question: how can the Ecological Sensitivity within Human Realities (ESHR) concept improve consistent and more thorough increases in functional biodiversity outcomes from human natural environment interactions as a conceptual explanation. The ESHR concept for functional biodiversity is introduced and explained using an integrated narrative literature review. Motivation to develop and present the ESHR is an observed and identified need to emphasize the human influence on functional biodiversity outcomes and encourage sensitivity of human interactions with the natural environment through more detailed considerations that might better ensure consistent outcomes. Existing and commonly used concepts that seek to improve biodiversity in agricultural systems are compared to the ESHR to demonstrate novelty. New understandings of ecological and human conditions in coffee farming landscapes are not introduced, instead, the concept substantiates (1) functionally biodiverse agricultural systems rely on consistently functional ecological interactions and processes for all system and landscape complexities by structure, heterogeneity, and interactions, between and across systems; (2) human interactions are influenced by variability in the human condition across individuals and societal groups, referred to as human realities. When compared to the selection of existing concepts of similar intentions it demonstrates to combine strengths of different concepts with improved opportunity for contextual adaptations. Comparatively consistent, comprehensive considerations and functional biodiversity outcomes are encouraged and expected with the use of the ESHR. Recommendations for future use and research are provided.

Organic farming is seen as a prototype of ecological intensification potentially able to conciliate crop productivity and biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes. However, how natural enemies, an important functional group supporting pest control services, respond to organic farming at different scales and in different landscape contexts remain unclear. Using a hierarchical design within a vineyard‐dominated region located in southwestern France, we examine the independent effects of organic farming and semi‐natural habitats at the local and landscape scales on natural enemies. We show that the proportion of organic farming is a stronger driver of species abundance than the proportion of semi‐natural habitats and is an important facet of landscape heterogeneity shaping natural enemy assemblages. Although our study highlights a strong taxonomic group‐dependency about the effect of organic farming, organic farming benefits to dominant species while rare species occur at the same frequency in the two farming systems. Independently of farming systems, enhancing field age, reducing crop productivity, soil tillage intensity, and pesticide use are key management options to increase natural enemy biodiversity. Our study indicates that policies promoting the expansion of organic farming will benefit more to ecological intensification strategies seeking to enhance ecosystem services than to biodiversity conservation., Within viticultural landscapes, the proportion of organic farming is a stronger driver of species abundance than the proportion of semi‐natural habitats and it is an important facet of landscape heterogeneity shaping natural enemy assemblages. Although our study highlights a strong taxonomic group dependency about the effect of organic farming, organic farming benefits to dominant species while rare species occur at the same frequency in the two farming systems.

The main trends of the territorial analysis of agricultural lands and their environmental assessment are considered. The methodology of information agroecological zoning includes classification of landscape structure and natural-anthropogenic processes on the research area, formation of an information database, parameterization of components and agroecological processes, creation of graphical models of the functioning of agricultural landscapes and adjacent territories. Differentiated approaches have been developed to conduct general scientific and targeted agroecologic zoning of agricultural lands based on landscape-ecological principles. The complex of quantitative parameters of the components of agricultural landscapes for the assessment and zoning of their ecology features is proposed. A tabular legend for the regional general scientific agroecological map of the Right-Bank Forest-Steppe provincial of Ukraine has been prepared. The considered issues of the methodology of agroecological zoning allow to introduce the practice of such research as the basis for the formation of the State program of general scientific and target agroecological zoning of Ukraine.

This article sits in response to work on the rolling out of development-centred technical and scientific expertise at the decline of the British empire in Africa. Specifically, it focuses on the imagining of future agricultural landscapes in Sudan, exploring how such imagining was framed by the social and colonial worlds in which scientific knowledge about agricultural capacity in the north and south was produced. It draws on a private archive of letters, photographs and objects compiled by Roger Brain, an agricultural scientist engaged in research and census work for the University of Khartoum in Sudan between 1953 and 1959. His archive reveals the underlying assumptions, conventions and anxieties that framed the ways in which he viewed and understood the landscapes in which he worked. I argue that this framing shaped regionalised notions of inevitable technological transformation in the north, and notions of a fragile cultural distinctiveness coupled with a deep nostalgia for rural intransience in the south. Ultimately I suggest that this shaped the production of scientific knowledge by Roger Brain and others like him, woven through the production of policy and planning regarding Sudan’s economic future after independence.

Undermined by the increasing urban sprawl as well as intensification of agricultural production, the urban–rural fringe agricultural landscapes face challenges of ensuring viable food production, r...

Remote sensing data is widely used in numerous ecological applications. The Sentinel-2 satellites (S2 A and B), recently launched by the European Spatial Agency´s (ESA), provide at present the best revisit time, spatial and spectral resolution among the freely available remote sensing optical data. In this study, we explored the potential of S2 enhanced spectral and spatial resolution to explain and predict mice abundances and distribution in border habitats of agroecosystems. We compared the predictive ability of different vegetation and water indices derived from S2 and Landsat 8 (L8) imagery. Our analyses revealed that the best predictor of mice abundance was L8-derived Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI). S2-based indices, however, outperformed those computed from L8 bands for indices estimated simultaneously to mice trappings and for mice distribution models. Furthermore, indices including S2 red-edge bands were the best predictors of the distribution of the two most common rodent species in the ensemble. The findings of this study can be used as guidelines when selecting the sensors and vegetation variables to be included in more complex models aimed at predicting the distribution and risk of various vector-borne diseases, and especially rodents in other agricultural landscapes. Fil: Andreo, Verónica Carolina. University Of Twente; Países Bajos. Ministerio de Salud. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Tropical; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste; Argentina Fil: Belgiu, Mariana. University Of Twente; Países Bajos Fil: Brito Hoyos, Diana Marcela. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Osei, Frank. University Of Twente; Países Bajos Fil: Provensal, María Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales; Argentina Fil: Stein, Alfred. University Of Twente; Países Bajos

In the literature on how urbanization affects agricultural landscapes, little attention has been focused on differentiating and comparing the changes in irrigated agricultural landscapes to non-irrigated agricultural landscapes. Additionally, there have been few applications of landscape metrics for understanding agricultural landscape changes. The objectives of this study were to: (1) analyze and compare the changes of both irrigated and non-irrigated agricultural lands in a rapidly growing region; (2) identify the spatial patterns and hotspots of these changes; and, (3) examine the spatial relationships between changes in agricultural landscapes and urban development. We adopted landscape metrics and gradient analysis to assess where and how agricultural landscape changes occurred in northern Utah over the past 30 years. A revised urban gradient was also developed to detect the changes of agricultural landscapes in relation to new urban development. We found that irrigated agricultural lands were more affected by urban development than non-irrigated agricultural lands, with evidence of more patches, more irregular patch shapes, and less connectivity among patches. This study contributes not only to the existing literature on the dynamics of both irrigated and non-irrigated agricultural lands in relation to urban development, but also helps fill the gap of scant applications of landscape metrics and urban gradient analysis in agricultural areas. Most importantly, such a comprehensive examination of Utah's agricultural landscapes will serve as part of the scientific foundation for informing land use policy in the region, as well as provide lessons for other places that are facing similar agricultural land conversion challenges.

Landscape change caused by ecological restoration projects has both positive and negative influences on human livelihoods, yet surprisingly little research on the cultural consequences of ecological restoration in agricultural landscapes has taken place. Cultural consequences can be captured in the ecosystem services framework as cultural ecosystem services (CES). However, assessment and valuation of these services to support decision-making for this essential ecosystem is lacking. To help fill this gap, we assessed the opinions of Chinese rural communities about CES and the changes in their perception under the Grain for Green program (GFG), a nationwide program to relieve the pressure on ecosystems (soil erosion and land degradation) by converting cultivated land or barren land on steep slopes into grassland and forests. We used Guyuan City in China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as a case study, using a workshop to identify the CES provided by the agricultural landscape, followed by semi-structured household interviews to quantify perceptions of these CES. We found that all eight CES types identified by the workshop were perceived by the rural communities. Reforestation changed their perceptions of CES directly due to land cover change and indirectly due to the resulting economic changes and migration of mostly young workers in search of better jobs. Cultivated land was perceived as more important than forest for CES provision. In addition, residential areas were perceived as providing significant CES because of local traditions that produce close and highly social neighborhood bonds in agricultural landscapes.

This work deals with the dichotomy between integration and fragmentation caused by artificial elements in the cultural landscapes, especially minor rural roads. In Europe, the rural matrix dominates the configuration of landscapes, and the agents of fragmentation can be analysed from different perspectives. For this purpose, the Land Parcel Information System, designed for the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is used as a data source to feed the indicators, allowing a high detail analysis, down to the parcel unit. It is applied to a case-study in Spain: the province of Ciudad Real. Here we find different landscape units with different rural and agrarian profiles to test the hypothesis. We use three indicators that allow us to explore the configuration of different cultural landscapes under the fragmentation perspective, using minor rural roads and other elements of the rural matrix that can only be observed at large scale. Then we calculate a composite indicator summarizing the fragmentation results of each unit. Results reveal a significative variability of fragmentation results regarding the land use and spatial patterns of the different cultural landscapes dominated by agrarian and rural factors, with a strong correspondence with the minor rural network underneath. Therefore, fragmentation can be interpreted as a dual process in cultural landscapes where the different land uses have different relations with the infrastructure network.

This multidisciplinary volume draws upon a conference in 2016 on agriculture and agricultural landscapes in Wales, to bring together a comprehensive and much needed analysis of the role of agricult...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a 30 m resolution crop-specific land cover map produced annually to assess crops and cropland area across the conterminous United States. Despite its prominent use and value for monitoring agricultural land use/land cover (LULC), there remains substantial uncertainty surrounding the CDLs’ performance, particularly in applications measuring LULC at national scales, within aggregated classes, or changes across years. To fill this gap, we used state- and land cover class-specific accuracy statistics from the USDA from 2008 to 2016 to comprehensively characterize the performance of the CDL across space and time. We estimated nationwide area-weighted accuracies for the CDL for specific crops as well as for the aggregated classes of cropland and non-cropland. We also derived and reported new metrics of superclass accuracy and within-domain error rates, which help to quantify and differentiate the efficacy of mapping aggregated land use classes (e.g., cropland) among constituent subclasses (i.e., specific crops). We show that aggregate classes embody drastically higher accuracies, such that the CDL correctly identifies cropland from the user’s perspective 97% of the time or greater for all years since nationwide coverage began in 2008. We also quantified the mapping biases of specific crops throughout time and used these data to generate independent bias-adjusted crop area estimates, which may complement other USDA survey- and census-based crop statistics. Our overall findings demonstrate that the CDLs provide highly accurate annual measures of crops and cropland areas, and when used appropriately, are an indispensable tool for monitoring changes to agricultural landscapes.

International audience; Vegetative barriers are increasingly used to reduce sediment export from cropland and thus mitigate negative off-site consequences of soil erosion. Here, we report and discuss the effectiveness of vegetative barriers implemented in Flanders (Belgium) to buffer the flows of water and sediment. The three types of vegetative barriers studied are made of straw bales, wood chips or bales of coconut- fibre. Based on three simulated runoff experiments performed in the field, we calculated the hydraulic roughness and sediment deposition ratio. Our experiments showed that the barriers made of coconut-fibre bales performed markedly better than those of straw bales or wood chips (Manning's n values of 1.355, 1.049 and 2.231 s m-1/3 and a sediment deposition ratio of 19%, 38% and 64% for barriers made of straw bales, wood chips and coconut-fibre bales, respectively, during the first experiment). These values increased during subsequent experiments demonstrating the effect of sediment accumulating inside the structures. Especially for coconut-fibre bales, this accumulation increases the risk of runoff bypassing or overtopping the barriers. The barriers mainly retained sand and, to a lesser extent, silt and clay. As vegetative barriers have to be renewed every few years because of the decomposition of organic material, barriers made of locally available materials are more sustainable as a nature-based solution to erosion. We conclude that although the vegetative barriers made of coconut-fibre bales are superior in their regulation of flows of runoff and sediment, barriers made of locally sourced materials are more sustainable.

International audience; Societal demand for multifunctional agricultural landscapes keeps increasing. To promote such landscapes, it is necessary to identify which components of landscape heterogeneity support multiple ecosystem services, as well as levers of action to promote these landscape properties. The social-ecological theoretical framework for multifunctional landscapes has inspired 40 years of research in the Long Term Socio-Ecological Research site of Vallées et Coteaux de Gascogne (VCG), which is part of the LTSER platform ZA PYGAR located in south-west France. Researchers from different domains of the social and biophysical sciences, have worked together in this LTSER site and gained a multidisciplinary understanding of both drivers of VCG landscape dynamics and the role of landscape heterogeneity for multiple ecosystem services. Local features of the VCG and social systems have interacted with global drivers and lead to the maintenance of a high level of landscape heterogeneity. We show how the different components of landscape heterogeneity influence cultural, provisioning, supporting, and regulating services. In collaboration with stakeholders, we developed scenarios to explore possible futures for the VCG landscapes and are now integrating models developed for the VCG to assess the consequences of these scenarios on landscape multifunctionality. This synthesis demonstrates how LTSER sites can be particularly relevant to explore the future of multifunctional agricultural landscapes.

Most vegetated land on earth has been used for agriculture for hundreds of years, shaping the land’s features and functions. Agricultural (rural) landscapes are the basis for feeding the global population and meeting their many other demands. In the globalised world of the twenty-first century, agriculture is facing some crucial challenges: feeding more people whilst maintaining natural resources, biodiversity and landscape heritage, and mitigating climate change. This requires new knowledge, innovations and decision tools for taking responsible action. Research on agricultural landscapes provides analyses to help understand landscape processes and elaborates sustainable scientific, technical and cultural solutions. We report on recent progress in some topics of measuring, modelling and monitoring processes, and on organismic diversity in agricultural landscapes, focusing on developments in Western Europe. Information is also given about long-term experimental agricultural research in Russia and neighbouring countries. Results indicate that there has been considerable progress in understanding landscape processes based on experimental and modelling research on different scales. A number of landscape-related research methods and tools have been developed in recent years. These include high-tech measurement systems, models and decision aids, and tools for monitoring and optimising agricultural systems and for agri-environmental monitoring. Many of them also have potential for successfully tackling existing problems with the sustainability of agricultural systems in other landscapes and regions. Transdisciplinary international research projects are required to make innovations operable.

Improving the management of multiple ecosystem services (e.g., food provision, water and air quality regulation, carbon storage, and erosion control) in agricultural landscapes is a critical challenge to improve food system sustainability. However, we currently lack spatially-resolved national-level assessments of the relationships among services in agricultural landscapes over time. This limits our ability to make decisions and predict how environmental changes or agricultural management actions will impact multiple services. How do multiple ecosystem services vary across both space and time, at regional-to-national scales? To address this question, we quantified eight indicators of four ecosystem services across 290 Canadian agricultural landscapes in 1996, 2001, and 2006. We observed consistent correlations between pairs of services across the 290 ecodistricts in each of the 3 years of our study. In particular, ecodistricts with high livestock production had low provision of most regulating services, while ecodistricts with high air quality (ammonia retention) also had high soil and water quality regulation services. However, these ‘snapshot’ correlations poorly predicted how pairs of services changed through time. Ecosystem service change from 1996–2001 to 2001–2006 (as measured by pairwise correlations) showed markedly different patterns than snapshot correlations. In particular, where livestock production increased between years, so did most regulating services. Ecosystem service bundles also showed similar divergent patterns. The distribution of ecosystem service “snapshot” bundles—sets of ecodistricts with similar levels of provision across multiple ecosystem services in a single year—was generally stable between 1996 and 2006; only 15% of ecodistricts changed bundle types in this time period. However, ecosystem service “change” bundles—sets of ecodistricts with similar changes in ecosystem service provision through time—were much more dynamic. Nearly 60% of ecodistricts exhibited a different set of ecosystem service changes from 2001 to 2006 compared to 1996 to 2001. Our results add to the growing evidence that relationships between services across space do not necessarily predict service change through time. Improved understanding of the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services, and better understanding of underlying processes, is crucial to improve agricultural landscape management for multifunctionality and sustainability.

The Huerta is recognised as one of the 13 specific agricultural landscapes in Europe, present in only three Mediterranean countries, namely Spain, Italy, and Greece. In the case of Spain, three areas fall within the established Huerta agricultural classification: the Huertas de Valencia, Murcia, and Vega Baja. While all of them share common landscape features, each Huerta has distinguishing singularities which are approached through two perspectives: firstly, the structural tangible elements, related to functional networks&mdash, water distribution, pathways networks, settlement patterns, and the agricultural production system, and secondly, the role of the intangible components&mdash, connotations of the word Huerta, water management, canal and path upkeep rules, and the administration of these territories. The analysis of the tangible elements and intangible components in the three Spanish Huertas shows these territories as complex and balanced systems that have historically counterbalanced the environmental drawbacks in one of the most arid European regions. Despite being a highly appreciated environmental and productive asset, these Huertas are under intense pressure from urban development in highly urbanized metropolitan areas. This study shows Huertas&rsquo, uniqueness through their historical role in the territorial planning and management strategies at the local level, finally depicting Huertas as a present strategical opportunity for reaching environmental goals in peri-urban areas.

Development has fragmented urban nature, and target sites for conservation strategies need to be those that have long maintained their original land cover in a clustered area. Additionally, continuously grasping changes from rural to urban as well as changes over decades after urbanization is essential. Therefore, this study identified and investigated natural patches in urban landscapes, clarified actual management practices in the identified patches, and traced changes in land ownership and land cover during the past 130 years in the Tsukuba Science City, Japan. We first identified areas containing clusters of urban grasslands and forest patches that have existed since the 2010s. We then identified urban green space patches that since the 1880s have remained undeveloped after being agricultural landscapes, despite the rapid urbanization of the Tsukuba Science City since the 1970s. These patches of urban green space were mainly identified near rural communities, research institutions, planned development sites, and golf courses. The findings of this study highlighted the need for new policy implications through systematic arrangement of diverse conservation strategies to maintain urban green space patches. Further investigation is required to elucidate the ecosystem services provided by these remnant green patches.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, agricultural land-use intensification and decline in freshwater ecosystem integrity pose complex challenges for science and society. Despite riparian management programmes across the country, there is frustration over a lack in widespread uptake, upfront financial costs, possible loss in income, obstructive legislation and delays in ecological recovery. Thus, social, economic and institutional barriers exist when implementing and assessing agricultural freshwater restoration. Partnerships are essential to overcome such barriers by identifying and promoting co-benefits that result in amplifying individual efforts among stakeholder groups into coordinated, large-scale change. Here, we describe how initial progress by a sole farming family at the Silverstream in the Canterbury region, South Island, New Zealand, was used as a catalyst for change by the Canterbury Waterway Rehabilitation Experiment, a university-led restoration research project. Partners included farmers, researchers, government, industry, treaty partners (Indigenous rights-holders) and practitioners. Local capacity and capability was strengthened with practitioner groups, schools and the wider community. With partnerships in place, co-benefits included lowered costs involved with large-scale actions (e.g., earth moving), reduced pressure on individual farmers to undertake large-scale change (e.g., increased participation and engagement), while also legitimising the social contracts for farmers, scientists, government and industry to engage in farming and freshwater management. We describe contributions and benefits generated from the project and describe iterative actions that together built trust, leveraged and aligned opportunities. These actions were scaled from a single farm to multiple catchments nationally.

Introduction to Sampling Arthropod Populations (L.P. Pedigo). Sampling Principles: Arthropod Sampling in Agricultural Landscapes: Ecological Considerations (D.A. Landis). Statistics for Describing Populations (P.M. Davis). Bias and Variability in Statistical Estimates (D.E. Legg and R.D. Moon). Sampling Techniques and Initial Program Development: Techniques for Sampling Arthropods in IPM (S.H. Hutchins). Developing a Primary Sampling Program (G.D. Buntin). Improving Sampling Program Efficiency: Initiating Sampling Programs (L.G. Higley and R.K.D. Peterson). Sequential Sampling for Classifying Pest Status (M.R. Binns). Sequential Estimation and Classification Procedures for Binomial Counts (V.P. Jones). Sequential Sampling to Determine Population Density (W.D. Hutchison). Sampling to Predict or Monitor Biological Control (J.P. Nyrop and W. van der Werf). Time-Sequential Sampling for Taking Tactical Action (L.P. Pedigo). Sampling Programs: Sampling Methods for Insect Management in Alfalfa (R. Berberet and W.D. Hutchison). Sampling Pest and Beneficial Arthropods of Apple (E.H. Beers, L.A. Hull, and V.P. Jones). Sampling Arthropod Pests in Citrus (J.D. Hare). Sampling Arthropod Pests in Corn (J.J. Tollefson and D.D. Calvin). Estimating Abundance Impact, and Interactions among Arthropods in Cotton Agroecosystems (L.T. Wilson). Sampling Arthropods in Livestock Management Systems (T.J. Lysyk and R.D. Moon). Sampling Programs for Soybean Arthropods (M.R. Zeiss and T.H. Klubertanz). Sampling Arthropod Pests in Vegetables (J.T. Trumble). Sampling Arthropod Pests of Wheat and Rice (N.E. Elliott, G.L. Hein, and B.M. Shepard). Implementation of Sampling Programs: Training Specialists in Sampling Procedures (G.W. Cuperus and R. Berberet). Designing and Delivering In-The-Field Scouting Programs (E.J. Bechinski).

Multifunctional agriculture (MFA) has attracted increased attention from academics and policymakers in recent years. Academic researchers have utilised various approaches to assess and measure the multifunctionality of agriculture and rural landscapes. This paper outlines the nature of MFA and key supporting policies, before reviewing the applied research approaches, drawing primarily from the European Union and China where specific policies on MFA have been implemented to support rural development and promote sustainable rural communities. Four distinct types of valuation of modern MFA are recognised: economic, biophysical, socio-cultural, and holistic. Following a search of both the recent and older MFA literature, evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods applications are provided using examples from a range of recent studies. The review illustrates the diversity of approaches to measure MFA. While noting that many studies operate at a landscape scale, the challenge remains that the lack of commonality in the research approaches applied means it is difficult to provide effective comparisons between studies or to compare findings. A future research agenda will need to emphasise the need for more consideration of the roles of MFA research to support decision-makers, especially policy makers, but also farmers who largely make decisions for individual farms but, if considered collectively, can transform production systems at a landscape scale.

Knowledge of the location and extent of agricultural fields is required for many applications, including agricultural statistics, environmental monitoring, and administrative policies. Furthermore, many mapping applications, such as object-based classification, crop type distinction, or large-scale yield prediction benefit significantly from the accurate delineation of fields. Still, most existing field maps and observation systems rely on historic administrative maps or labor-intensive field campaigns. These are often expensive to maintain and quickly become outdated, especially in regions of frequently changing agricultural patterns. However, exploiting openly available remote sensing imagery (e.g., from the European Union’s Copernicus programme) may allow for frequent and efficient field mapping with minimal human interaction. We present a new approach to extracting agricultural fields at the sub-pixel level. It consists of boundary detection and a field polygon extraction step based on a newly developed, modified version of the growing snakes active contours model we refer to as graph-based growing contours. This technique is capable of extracting complex networks of boundaries present in agricultural landscapes, and is largely automatic with little supervision required. The whole detection and extraction process is designed to work independently of sensor type, resolution, or wavelength. As a test case, we applied the method to two regions of interest in a study area in the northern Germany using multi-temporal Sentinel-2 imagery. Extracted fields were compared visually and quantitatively to ground reference data. The technique proved reliable in producing polygons closely matching reference data, both in terms of boundary location and statistical proxies such as median field size and total acreage.

Soil erosion leads to the loss of fertile topsoil, resulting in one of the principal soil degradation problems in agricultural landscapes worldwide. Soil redistribution processes affect the spatial and temporal variability of soil properties and nutrients, as soil organic carbon (SOC) which is linked to soil quality and soil functions. In the context of climate change mitigation as well as soil fertility and food security, there has been considerable interest in monitoring soil and carbon loss, especially in erosion-affected agricultural landscapes.In this study, we attempt to evaluate the temporal variation of SOC and carbon fractions in a Mediterranean mountain agroecosystem. To this purpose, repeating soil sampling and carbon measurements within the same sites was undertaken in 2003 and in 2016. The sampling sites were located in agricultural areas where erosion or deposition preferably occurs based on soil redistribution rates obtained by using 137Cs measurements. The content of soil organic carbon (SOC) and the active and stable SOC fractions, (ACF and SCF, respectively) contents were measured by the dry combustion method using LECO RC-612 equipment.Although statistically significant differences between the two surveys were not found, the mean content of SOC, ACF and SCF were slightly lower in the survey taken in 2016 than the one in 2013. Repeated topsoil sampling (0-5 cm) after 13 years reveals SOC and ACF losses for almost all the agricultural soils selected in this research. It’s important to highlight that the biggest differences between the two surveys are identified in the sites located in areas with steep slopes, while small variations occurred in the sites located in gentle slopes where deposition processes predominate. However, even if SCF losses were detected, especially in the erosive sites located in steep slopes, the content of SCF slightly increases for the second survey in sites located in depositional areas. To date, there have been few attempts to monitor soil carbon in Mediterranean soils, and this study represents a preliminary investigation that may be suitable for tracking absolute changes in SOC and carbon fractions in agricultural landscapes.