Tobias Kuemmerle

Land management and land-cover change have impacts of similar magnitude on surface temperature

The direct effects of land-cover change on surface climate are increasingly well understood, but fewer studies have investigated the consequences of the trend towards more intensive land management practices. Now, research investigating the biophysical effects of temperate land-management changes reveals a net warming effect of similar magnitude to that driven by changing land cover.

Effects of institutional changes on land use: agricultural land abandonment during the transition from state-command to market-driven economies in post-Soviet Eastern Europe

Institutional settings play a key role in shaping land cover and land use. Our goal was to understand the effects of institutional changes on agricultural land abandonment in different countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after the collapse of socialism. We studied 273 800 km 2 (eight Landsat footprints) within one agro-ecological zone stretching across Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and European Russia. Multi-seasonal Landsat TM/ETMC satellite images centered on 1990 (the end of socialism) and 2000 (one decade after the end of socialism) were used to classify agricultural land abandonment using support vector machines. The results revealed marked differences in the abandonment rates between countries. The highest rates of land abandonment were observed in Latvia (42% of all agricultural land in 1990 was abandoned by 2000), followed by Russia (31%), Lithuania (28%), Poland (14%) and Belarus (13%). Cross-border comparisons revealed striking differences; for example, in the Belarus‐Russia cross-border area there was a great difference between the rates of abandonment of the two countries (10% versus 47% of abandonment). Our results highlight the importance of institutions and policies for land-use trajectories and demonstrate that radically different combinations of institutional change of strong institutions during the transition can reduce the rate of agricultural land abandonment (e.g., in Belarus and in Poland). Inversely, our results demonstrate higher abandonment rates for countries where the institutions that regulate land use changed and where the institutions took more time to establish (e.g., Latvia, Lithuania and Russia). Better knowledge regarding the effects of such broad-scale change is essential for understanding land-use change and for designing effective land-use policies. This information is particularly relevant for Northern Eurasia, where rapid

POST‐SOCIALIST FOREST DISTURBANCE IN THE CARPATHIAN BORDER REGION OF POLAND, SLOVAKIA, AND UKRAINE

Forests provide important ecosystem services, and protected areas around the world are intended to reduce human disturbance on forests. The question is how forest cover is changing in different parts of the world, why some areas are more frequently disturbed, and if protected areas are effective in limiting anthropogenic forest disturbance. The Carpathians are Eastern Europes largest contiguous forest ecosystem and are a hotspot of biodiversity. Eastern Europe has undergone dramatic changes in political and socioeconomic structures since 1990, when socialistic state economies transitioned toward market economies. However, the effects of the political and economic transition on Carpathian forests remain largely unknown. Our goals were to compare post-socialist forest disturbance and to assess the effectiveness of protected areas in the border triangle of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine, to better understand the role of broadscale political and socioeconomic factors. Forest disturbances were assessed using the forest disturbance index derived from Landsat MSS/TM/ETM+ images from 1978 to 2000. Our results showed increased harvesting in all three countries (up to 1.8 times) in 1988-1994, right after the system change. Forest disturbance rates differed markedly among countries (disturbance rates in Ukraine were 4.5 times higher than in Poland, and those in Slovakia were 4.3 times higher than in Poland), and in Ukraine, harvests tended to occur at higher elevations. Forest fragmentation increased in all three countries but experienced a stronger increase in Slovakia and Ukraine (approximately 5% decrease in core forest) than in Poland. Protected areas were most effective in Poland and in Slovakia, where harvesting rates dropped markedly (by nearly an order of magnitude in Slovakia) after protected areas were designated. In Ukraine, harvesting rates inside and outside protected areas did not differ appreciably, and harvests were widespread immediately before the designation of protected areas. In summary, the socioeconomic changes in Eastern Europe that occurred since 1990 had strong effects on forest disturbance. Differences in disturbance rates among countries appear to be most closely related to broadscale socioeconomic conditions, forest management practices, forest policies, and the strength of institutions. We suggest that such factors may be equally important in other regions of the world.

A Pixel-Based Landsat Compositing Algorithm for Large Area Land Cover Mapping

Information on the changing land surface is required at high spatial resolutions as many processes cannot be resolved using coarse resolution data. Deriving such information over large areas for Landsat data, however, still faces numerous challenges. Image compositing offers great potential to circumvent such shortcomings. We here present a compositing algorithm that facilitates creating cloud free, seasonally and radiometrically consistent datasets from the Landsat archive. A parametric weighting scheme allows for flexibly utilizing different pixel characteristics for optimized compositing. We describe in detail the development of three parameter decision functions: acquisition year, day of year and distance to clouds. Our test site covers 42 Landsat footprints in Eastern Europe and we produced three annual composites. We evaluated seasonal and annual consistency and compared our composites to BRDF normalized MODIS reflectance products. Finally, we also evaluated how well the composites work for land cover mapping. Results prove that our algorithm allows for creating seasonally consistent large area composites. Radiometric correspondence to MODIS was high (up to R2 > 0.8), but varied with land cover configuration and selected image acquisition dates. Land cover mapping yielded promising results (overall accuracy 72%). Class delineations were regionally consistent with minimal effort for training data. Class specific accuracies increased considerably (~10%) when spectral metrics were incorporated. Our study highlights the value of compositing in general and for Landsat data in particular, allowing for regional to global LULCC mapping at high spatial resolutions.

Lost in transition: determinants of post-socialist cropland abandonment in Romania

The transition from command to market-oriented economies drastically affected land ownership and land management in Eastern Europe and resulted in widespread cropland abandonment. To examine these phenomena, we analysed the causes of post-socialist cropland abandonment in Argeş County in southern Romania between 1990 and 2005. Based on Landsat-derived maps of cropland use and a suite of environmental and socioeconomic variables hypothesized to drive cropland abandonment, we estimated spatially explicit logistic regression models for two periods (1990–1995 and 1995–2005) and three elevation groups. Our results showed that isolated cropland patches were more likely to become abandoned than more homogenous cropland areas. Unfavorable topography was an important determinant of abandonment in the plain and, to a lesser extent, hilly areas, but not in the mountains where locations with adverse market access and higher farm fragmentation exhibited higher likelihoods of cropland abandonment.

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.

Impacts of Surface Gold Mining on Land Use Systems in Western Ghana

Land use conflicts are becoming increasingly apparent from local to global scales. Surface gold mining is an extreme source of such a conflict, but mining impacts on local livelihoods often remain unclear. Our goal here was to assess land cover change due to gold surface mining in Western Ghana, one of the world’s leading gold mining regions, and to study how these changes affected land use systems. We used Landsat satellite images from 1986–2002 to map land cover change and field interviews with farmers to understand the livelihood implications of mining-related land cover change. Our results showed that surface mining resulted in deforestation (58%), a substantial loss of farmland (45%) within mining concessions, and widespread spill-over effects as relocated farmers expand farmland into forests. This points to rapidly eroding livelihood foundations, suggesting that the environmental and social costs of Ghana’s gold boom may be much higher than previously thought.

Mapping the extent of abandoned farmland in Central and Eastern Europe using MODIS time series satellite data

The demand for agricultural products continues to grow rapidly, but further agricultural expansion entails substantial environmental costs, making recultivating currently unused farmland an interesting alternative. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to widespread abandonment of agricultural lands, but the extent and spatial patterns of abandonment are unclear. We quantified the extent of abandoned farmland, both croplands and pastures, across the region using MODIS NDVI satellite image time series from 2004 to 2006 and support vector machine classifications. Abandoned farmland was widespread, totaling 52.5 Mha, particularly in temperate European Russia (32 Mha), northern and western Ukraine, and Belarus. Differences in abandonment rates among countries were striking, suggesting that institutional and socio-economic factors were more important in determining the amount of abandonment than biophysical conditions. Indeed, much abandoned farmland occurred in areas without major constraints for agriculture. Our map provides a basis for assessing the potential of Central and Eastern Europe’s abandoned agricultural lands to contribute to food or bioenergy production, or carbon storage, as well as the environmental trade-offs and social constraints of recultivation.

Exploring ecosystem-change and society through a landscape lens: recent progress in European landscape research

Landscapes are closely linked to human well-being, but they are undergoing rapid and fundamental change. Understanding the societal transformation underlying these landscape changes, as well as the ecological and societal outcomes of landscape transformations across scales are prime areas for landscape research. We review and synthesize findings from six important areas of landscape research in Europe and discuss how these findings may advance the study of ecosystem change and society and its thematic key priorities. These six areas are: (1) linkages between people and the environment in landscapes, (2) landscape structure and land-use intensity, (3) long-term landscape history, (4) driving forces, processes, and actors of landscape change, (5) landscape values and meanings, and (6) landscape stewardship. We propose that these knowledge areas can contribute to the study of ecosystem change and society, considering nested multiscale dynamics of social-ecological systems; the stewardship of these systems and their ecosystem services; and the relationships between ecosystem services, human well-being, wealth, and poverty. Our synthesis highlights that knowledge about past and current landscape patterns, processes, and dynamics provides guidance for developing visions to support the sustainable stewardship of social-ecological systems under future conditions.

A holistic approach to studying social-ecological systems and its application to southern Transylvania

2. Global change presents risks and opportunities for social-ecological systems worldwide. Key 3. challenges for sustainability science are to identify plausible future changes in social-ecological 4. systems, and find ways to reach socially and environmentally desirable conditions. In this context, 5. regional-scale studies are important, but to date, many such studies have focused on a narrow set of 6. issues or applied a narrow set of tools. Here, we present a holistic approach to work through the 7. complexity posed by cross-scale interactions, spatial heterogeneity and multiple uncertainties 8. facing regional social-ecological systems. Our approach is spatially explicit and involves 9. assessments of (i) social conditions and natural capital bundles, (ii) social-ecological system 10. dynamics, and (iii) current development trends. The resulting understanding are, in turn, used in 11. combination with scenario planning to map how current development trends may be amplified or 12. dampened in the future. We illustrate our approach via a detailed case study in Southern 13. Transylvania, Romania – one of Europe’s most significant biocultural refugia. Our goal was to 14. understand current social-ecological dynamics and assess risks and opportunities for sustainable 15. development. Our findings show that historical events have strongly shaped current conditions and Ecology and Society ES-2014-6915 (Version 3 of ES-2013-6448) 2 16. current development trends in Southern Transylvania. Moreover, although external drivers (including 17. EU policies) set the general direction of regional development trajectories, local factors – 18. including education, leadership and the presence of bridging organizations – can enhance or 19. counteract their effects. Our holistic approach was useful for generating an in-depth understanding 20. of a regional social-ecological system, and could be transferred to other parts of the world. 21.