Farmland abandonment in Europe: Establishment of network for testing novel data sets and methods to monitor the patterns and evaluate its drivers

Motivation

The opposite developments of intensification and extensification of cultural landscapes in Europe has caused considerable polarization of land use all over the continent. Whereas the intensification is well described and analyzed, the complementary process of marginalization and farmland abandonment are still to be consistently and uniformly evaluated. Farmland abandonment is a complex multi-dimensional process with environmental, ecological, economic and societal consequences. Changes in the field of biodiversity, for example, are closely related to land abandonment. Defining, analyzing and addressing land abandonment contributes to the sustainable development and use of landscapes, sustainable agriculture, and the protection of valuable natural resources. Interdisciplinary research spanning the fields of remote sensing, geography, biology and social sciences carried out by an international team from 4EU+ universities and further partners will bring new knowledge in this topic.

Assessment of different stages of farmland abandonment regarding the vegetation structure using 3D geodata acquired from different platforms and sensors.

The aim of the 4EU+ project is to build a network of partners collaborating within the Global Land Programme working group on Agricultural Land Abandonment. The network focusses on international and interdisciplinary research of various aspects and impacts of farmland abandonment across Europe. The initial collaboration includes preliminary testing of available data sources and methods (e.g., aerial and UAV data acquisition) and joint fieldwork. This establishes a basis for in-depth analysis and insights into perceptions about farmland abandonment in Europe.

Background

This collaboration project is funded in the framework of the 4EU+ programme of the European Union with Lucie Kupková (Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Cartography, Charles University Prague) as PI of the project and Heidelberg University, Charles University, University of Copenhagen, Slovak Academy of Science and University of Warsaw as project partners. It follows the alliance built up through the E-TRAINEE strategic partnership project in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and the 4EU+ collaboration project 3D Landcover Monitoring.