The increasing demand for agricultural commodities for food and energy purposes has led to intensified agricultural land management, along with the homogenization of landscapes, adverse biodiversity effects and robustness of landscapes regarding the provision of ecosystem services. At the same time, subsidized organic agriculture and extensive grassland use supports the provision of ecosystem services. Yet little is understood about how to evaluate a landscape’s potential to contribute to protecting and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services. To address this gap, we use plot-level data from the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) for Germany’s federal state of Brandenburg, and based on a two-step cluster analysis, we identify six types of agricultural landscapes. These clusters differ in landscape structure, diversity and measures for agricultural land management intensity. Agricultural land in Brandenburg is dominated by high shares of cropland but fragmented differently. Lands under organic management and those with a high share of maize show strong spatial autocorrelation, pointing to local clusters. Identification of different types of landscapes permits locally- and region-adapted designs of environmental and agricultural policy measures improves outcome-oriented environmental policy impact evaluation and landscape planning. Our approach allows transferability to other EU regions.

Highly dynamic peri-urban areas, particularly in the Global South, face many challenges including a lack of infrastructure, ownership conflicts, land degradation, and sustainable food production. This study aims to assess spatial land use characteristics and processes in peri-urban areas using the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A mixed-method approach was applied, consisting of expert interviews and spatial data analysis, on a local scale along an urban–rural gradient. Expert interviews were conducted during a field study and analyzed regarding the characteristics and processes of peri-urban land development. A GIS-based analysis of land use patterns was applied using satellite imagery and Open Street Map data to identify a number of variables, such as building density and proximity to environmental features. Results show specific patterns of land use indicators, which can be decreasing (e.g., house density), increasing (e.g., tree coverage), static (e.g., house size), or randomly distributed (e.g., distance to river), along a peri-urban gradient. Key findings identify lack of service structures and access to public transport as major challenges for the population of peri-urban areas. The combination of qualitative expert interviews and metrics-based quantitative spatial pattern analysis contributes to improved understanding of the patterns and processes in peri-urban land use changes.

An increasing demand for agricultural products within the past years has led to increasing agricultural intensification. Various agricultural compositions and landscape configurations can have different impacts on the provision of ecosystem services. The EU follows the aim of supporting and developing sustainable food production systems. We use the plot-based data provided by the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) to identify different types of agricultural landscapes and their spatial distribution in Brandenburg, Germany. By calculating a set of landscape metrics to characterise agricultural land use, we were able to identify six types of agricultural landscapes by a Two-Step cluster analysis for a hexagonal grid. Thereby, the majority of Brandenburg is covered by agriculture characterised by high share of cropland but different degrees of fragmentation. By providing a framework using landscape metrics derived from IACS data, the approach of clustering to identify typologies is highly transferable to other regions within the EU and may provide an important asset for offering new units of analysis for a better tailored environmental and agricultural planning depending on the local to regional characteristics.

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