Artikel

Agricultural land change in the Carpathian ecoregion after the breakdown of socialism and expansion of the European Union

Widespread changes of agricultural land use occurred in Eastern Europe since the collapse of socialism and the European Union’s eastward expansion, but the rates and patterns of recent land changes remain unclear. Here we assess agricultural land change for the entire Carpathian ecoregion in Eastern Europe at 30 m spatial resolution with Landsat data and for two change periods, between 1985–2000 and 2000–2010. The early period is characterized by post-socialist transition processes, the late period by an increasing influence of EU politics in the region. For mapping and change detection, we use a machine learning approach (random forests) on image composites and variance metrics which were derived from the full decadal archive of Landsat imagery. Our results suggest that cropland abandonment was the most prevalent change process, but we also detected considerable areas of grassland conversion and forest expansion on non-forest land. Cropland abandonment was most extensive during the transition period and predominantly occurred in marginal areas with low suitability for agriculture. Conversely, we observed substantial recultivation of formerly abandoned cropland in high-value agricultural areas since 2000. Hence, market forces increasingly adjust socialist legacies of land expansive production and agricultural land use clusters in favorable areas while marginal lands revert to forest.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Journal: Environmental Research Letters ; ISSN: 1748-9326 ; Volume: 8 ; Year: 2013 ; Issue: 4 ; Pages: 1-12 ; Bristol: IOP Publishing

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Thema
Europe
land use change
agricultural abandonment
fallow land
recultivation
grassland conversion
forest expansion
remote sensing
image compositing
Landsat

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Griffiths, Patrick
Müller, Daniel
Kuemmerle, Tobias
Hostert, Patrick
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
IOP Publishing
(wo)
Bristol
(wann)
2013

DOI
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/045024
Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
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Objekttyp

  • Artikel

Beteiligte

  • Griffiths, Patrick
  • Müller, Daniel
  • Kuemmerle, Tobias
  • Hostert, Patrick
  • IOP Publishing

Entstanden

  • 2013

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