Europe as an example to study land-system change

Europe provides an interesting case to study land-system changes due to several reasons.

First, Europe experienced a period of marked land-use change historically and recently, including both changes in the extent and intensity of agriculture and forestry, that led to a large diversity of land systems and multifaceted land-change pathways (Jepsen et al. 2015, Rounsevell et al. 2012, Vos and Meekes 1999). Europe’s land system is dominated by anthropogenic landscapes with agricultural (42%) and forest areas (35%) occupying the largest share of its territory, the latter consisting majorly of semi-natural stands and plantations (SOER 2010). Europe’s land system was characterised by land conversions for a long time before land use predominantly changed along intensification gradients in the second half of the 20^th century (Rounsevell et al. 2012). Europe’s agricultural systems experienced a substantial intensification in the 1960’s to 1980’s after a period of expansion, mainly on the expense of forests and grasslands (Kaplan et al. 2012). Currently, Europe harbours some of the most intensively managed agricultural areas worldwide (Haberl et al.

2007, Mueller et al. 2012). Concurrently, the spatial extent of agriculture declined in marginal areas that offered less suitable conditions for production (MacDonald et al. 2000, Navarro and Pereira 2012), which resulted in the widespread loss of traditional agricultural landscapes (Fischer et al. 2012) and an overall increase of Europe’s forest cover since the 1950’s (Gold et al. 2006, Fuchs et al. 2013). Together with afforestation and nature protection practices, re-growing woody vegetation on former agricultural areas contributes

to the forest transition taking place in Europe after the Industrial Revolution (Kaplan et al.

2012, Rudel et al. 2005), counterbalancing the previous, substantial deforestation in order to satisfy the demand for agricultural land, timber products, and energy. Furthermore, the structure of Europe’s forest was modified due to changes in forest management, nitrogen deposition, and climate change (Erb et al. 2013b, Fernández-Martínez et al. 2014, Pretzsch et al. 2014). The European Union considerably expanded its conservation network (Jones-Walters and Čivić 2013) and emphasised landscape multifunctionality by considering environmental costs of land-use intensification, for example through policies such as agri-environmental and set-aside schemes (Whittingham 2011).

Second, Europe experienced drastic institutional changes between World War II and the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1989 (Kuemmerle et al. 2006). In this period, Europe’s economy was characterised by a market-driven economy in Western and a central planning economy in Eastern Europe, which had marked influences on the management of the respective land systems (Prishchepov et al. 2012). The breakdown of the Soviet Union with the resulting change from a planning to market economy and the subsequent eastward expansion of the EU triggered widespread land-use change (Munteanu et al. 2014, Kuemmerle 2008), both in agriculture (Griffiths et al. 2013b, Müller et al. 2009) and forestry (Griffiths et al. 2013a, Ellis et al. 2010, Kuemmerle et al. 2007) Furthermore, legacy effects of the differently managed land systems are still visible today, resulting in a marked east-west divide, especially for land-management intensity. For example, land-use intensification began later and at slower rates in Eastern Europe compared to the Western countries, resulting in generally higher land-use intensity in Western Europe (Jepsen et al.

2015).

Third, Europe’s utilisation of terrestrial surface for land-based production is one of the highest on the globe and the expansion of production systems into remaining (semi-) natural areas are strongly constrained (Haberl et al. 2007). Despite this, Europe revealed considerable increases in per capita food supply with decreasing per capita cropland requirements. This can be partly explained by improved land-use efficiency (i.e., how efficient the human appropriation of net primary production is converted to land-based products, Plutzar et al. 2015) and related land-use intensification but also by international trade (Kastner et al. 2015), which allowed for relieving pressure on Europe’s production systems and ecosystems by importing goods from locations outside of the European boundaries. More than half of the land footprint associated with products consumed in the

equalling approximately 16% of the total global land footprint by only covering 7% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface (Weinzettel et al. 2013, Steen-Olsen et al. 2012).

Fourth, changes in policy instruments (e.g., the Common Agricultural Policy or EU Forest Strategy) markedly influenced land systems in large parts of Europe (Donald et al. 2002, Forest Europe et al. 2011). These land systems are managed and stewarded by policies acting on different spatial scales and can be grouped into three general categories (SOER 2010): (i) integrated programmes for land-use planning and management, (ii) targeted policy instruments for specific locations or land-use sectors, and (iii) sectoral policies focussing on economic drivers. An important example for category (i) is the European Spatial Development Perspective (EC 1999b). However legally non-binding, this framework aimed at coordinating the manifold regional policy impacts in Europe and advocated the long-term sustainability of Europe's land use. It aimed at ensuring economic cohesion, the conservation and management of natural resources and cultural heritage, and a more balanced competitiveness of the European territory (EC 1999b). Important examples for category (ii) are the Natura 2000 directive or the Pan-European Ecological Network (PEEN) that try to balance biodiversity conservation and the human use of natural resources (SOER 2010).

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is arguably the most important policy for category (iii). Implemented as the “Treaty of Rome” in 1957, it initially aimed at increasing agricultural productivity, ensuring a fair living standard for farmers and reasonable prices for consumers, stabilising markets, and assuring sufficient food supply (Swinnen 2014).

CAP policies (price supports, import tariffs, and export subsidies) triggered changes in agricultural management and were a major incentive for agricultural intensification that turned the European Union from a net importer to a net exporter of food (van Zanten et al.

2014, Swinnen 2014). CAP policies also had marked impacts on European landscapes (Lefebvre et al. 2012). They lead to the scale enlargement of farms and the abandonment of marginal agricultural areas (van Zanten et al. 2014) that generally resulted in landscape homogenisation (Jongman 2002) and the polarisation of agricultural areas (Plieninger et al.

2014, Weissteiner et al. 2011). Since the 1990’s, the CAP underwent several reforms and was transformed from a production subsidy to an income subsidy system promoting cost-efficient agriculture (Lowe et al. 2002, van Zanten et al. 2014). As a response to the substantial environmental impacts related to the agricultural intensification triggered by CAP policies (Donald et al. 2002, Stoate et al. 2001), agri-environment schemes were introduced and single farm payments were subject to the cross-compliance of farmers to

environmental standards. EU-wide policies for the forestry sector include the EU Forest Strategy (EC 1999a) that aimed at implementing sustainable forest management principles and the succeeding EU Forest Action Plan (EC 2006a) with the target to maintain and enhance biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and the integrity, health, and resilience of forest ecosystems (SOER 2010).

The described environmental, political, socio-economic, and institutional changes markedly influenced Europe’s land system. How these changes relate to land-system patterns and trajectories remains unclear, especially with regard to the influence of land-use intensity changes. While general trends in land conversions can be identified based on results of the EU initiative “Coordination of Information on the Environment” (CORINE), knowledge on the rates, spatial patterns, and determinants of intensification pathways in Europe are currently strongly limited. Hence, there is an urgent need to gain a better understanding of land-system changes in Europe, thereby explicitly focussing and incorporating information on land-use intensity. This would allow for informing decision makers, especially the European Union as the supranational body steering land-use, to design targeted and regionalised policies for reaching a more sustainable future land use in Europe.