Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-Use Change Phenomenon

Introduction to farmland abandonment

The reasoning behind farmland abandonment

Urban and peri-urban farmland abandonment

Surveys, revealing behavioral aspects of farmland abandonment

Measuring farmland abandonment​

Land-use policies and reuse of abandoned farmlands

Implications of abandonment to GHG offsets and biodiversity

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Introduction to farmland abandonment in the context of global land transitions. Global land cover change, the discourse on definitions of farmland abandonment. Historical and modern aspects of farmland abandonment.

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Prishchepov, Alexander V. “Agricultural Land Abandonment.” In Environmental Science, by Alexander V. Prishchepov. Oxford University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199363445-0129.

-          Encyclopedia-like article on agricultural land abandonment with suggested readings.

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Grădinaru, Simona R., Cristian I. Iojă, Gabriel Ovidiu Vânău, and Diana Andreea Onose. “Multi-Dimensionality of Land Transformations: From Definition to Perspectives on Land Abandonment.” Carpathian Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences 15, no. 1 (February 2020): 167–77. https://doi.org/10.26471/cjees/2020/015/119

 

-          A paper specifically looks at the complexity of farmland abandonment definition from semantics, legislative, botany and remote sensing perspectives.

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Holl et al.,2022. “Redefining “abandoned” agricultural land in the context of reforestation.” Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2022.933887.

-           A new conceptualization of abandoned agricultural land that incorporates changes in landholding status over time into determining whether land is abandoned or not.

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The reasoning behind farmland abandonment. The concept of underlying and proximate causes. The role of telecoupling. The progress on studying the drivers of farmland abandonment and outlining research gaps.

 

Meyfroidt, Patrick. “Approaches and Terminology for Causal Analysis in Land Systems Science.” Journal of Land Use Science, December 21, 2015, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423X.2015.1117530 .

-           Terminology used in land system science.

 

Geist, H. J., and E. F. Lambin. “Proximate Causes and Underlying Driving Forces of Tropical Deforestation.” Bioscience 52, no. 2 (2002): 143–50.

-           A conceptual framework for understanding interlinkages between proximate and causal drivers of landscape change.

 

Subedi, Yuba Raj, Paul Kristiansen, and Oscar Cacho. “Drivers and Consequences of Agricultural Land Abandonment and Its Reutilisation Pathways: A Systematic Review.” Environmental Development, November 2021, 100681. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2021.100681 .

-           A systematic review of the drivers of farmland abandonment, also both positive and negative implications of farmland abandonment. Attention is paid to revisiting the reuse of abandoned farmlands.

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Schierhorn, Florian, Thomas Kastner, Tobias Kuemmerle, Patrick Meyfroidt, Irina Kurganova, Alexander V Prishchepov, Karl-Heinz Erb, Richard A Houghton, and Daniel Müller. “Large Greenhouse Gas Savings Due to Changes in the Post-Soviet Food Systems.” Environmental Research Letters 14, no. 6 (June 20, 2019): 065009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1cf1 .

-            How land use change and changing diets shape the production and carbon emissions via telecoupling.

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Urban and peri-urban farmland abandonment

Grădinaru, S. R., Iojă, C. I., Onose, D. A., Gavrilidis, A. A., Pătru-Stupariu, I., Kienast, F., & Hersperger, A. M. (2015). Land abandonment as a precursor of built-up development at the sprawling periphery of former socialist cities. Ecological Indicators, 57, 305-313

• Example of study on periurban transformation, including farmland abandonment.

 

Fayet, C. M., Reilly, K. H., Van Ham, C., & Verburg, P. H. (2022). What is the future of abandoned agricultural lands? A systematic review of alternative trajectories in Europe. Land use policy, 112, 105833.

• Perspectives for abandoned and cultivated lands following the debates including rewilding and Green Deal.

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Surveys, revealing behavioral aspects of farmland abandonment

​Grinfelde, Inga, and Mathijs, Erik. “Agricultural Land Abandonment in Latvia: An Econometric Analysis of Farmers’ Choice.” Agricultural Economics Society Annual Conference, Imperial College, South Kensington, London, January 1, 2004. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.6798669 .

• An example of farm survey and establishment of the causal framework to evaluate the factors affecting farmland abandonment.

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Prishchepov, Alexander V., Elena V. Ponkina, Zhanli Sun, Miroslava Bavorova, and Olga A. Yekimovskaja. “Revealing the Intentions of Farmers to Recultivate Abandoned Farmland: A Case Study of the Buryat Republic in Russia.” Land Use Policy 107 (August 2021): 105513. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105513 .

• An example of survey of farmers and evaluation of behavioral mechanisms, plus, the establishment of the causal framework.

 

Measuring farmland abandonment

Yin et al., 2020. Monitoring cropland abandonment with Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment 246: 111873 DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2020.111873

• This study is the first one that tries to map abandonment and recultivation across different environments and agricultural systems around the globe using long-term Landsat time series.

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Lesiv et al., 2018. Spatial distribution of arable and abandoned land across former Soviet Union countries. Scientific Data 5: 180056.  DOI:10.1038/sdata.2018.56

• Large-scale abandonment mapping based on existing land cover products.

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Goga et al., 2019. A Review of the Application of Remote Sensing Data for Abandoned Agricultural Land Identification with Focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Remote Sensing. 11: 2759. DOI: 10.3390/rs11232759

• A review of using remote sensing technique to map abandonment in Eastern Europe.'

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Land-use policies and reuse of abandoned farmlands

Fayet, C. M., Reilly, K. H., Van Ham, C., & Verburg, P. H. (2022). What is the future of abandoned agricultural lands? A systematic review of alternative trajectories in Europe. Land use policy, 112, 105833.

-           Perspectives for abandoned and cultivated lands following the debates including rewilding and Green Deal.

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Meyfroidt, Patrick, F. Schierhorn, A. V. Prishchepov, D. Müller, and T. Kuemmerle. “Drivers, Constraints and Trade-Offs Associated with Recultivating Abandoned Cropland in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.” Global Environmental Change 37 (2016): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.01.003 .

-           “Limited” availability of abandoned lands to satisfy growing food demand.

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Implications of abandonment to GHG offsets and biodiversity

Crawford et al., 2022. Rural land abandonment is too ephemeral to provide major benefits for biodiversity and climate” Science Advances. 8: eabm8999. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm8999

• This study showed that abandonment is more fleeting than people thought. The frequent re-cultivation hampers the full potential of abandoned croplands for conservation and carbon sequestration.

 

Bell et al., 2023. Quantifying the recarbonization of post-agricultural landscapes. Nature Communications. 14: 2139. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37907-w

• Latest comments on the potential of abandoned lands for carbon storage

 

Queiroz, Cibele, Ruth Beilin, Carl Folke, and Regina Lindborg. 2014 “Farmland Abandonment: Threat or Opportunity for Biodiversity Conservation? A Global Review.” 12: 288–96. https://doi.org/10.1890/120348.

• A global overview of farmland abandonment looks at the biodiversity part of this process.