A new view on EU agricultural landscapes: Quantifying patchiness to assess farmland heterogeneity

Weissteiner, Christof J.; García-Feced, Celia; Paracchini, Maria Luisa

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.09.032

Cited by 32 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Besides, the landscape pattern (e.g. the patchiness index, Weissteiner et al 2016) is fundamental to understand the level of threat to biodiversity posed by an agricultural system. This is information at landscape level which is completely missing in LCA.…”

Section: A N U S C R I P Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of life cycle assessment in supporting sustainable agri-food systems: A review of the challenges

Notarnicola

Sala

Antón

et al. 2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

489

273

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Life cycle thinking is increasingly seen as a key concept for ensuring a transition towards more sustainable production and consumption patterns. As food production systems and consumption patterns are among the leading drivers of impacts on the environment, it is important to assess and improve food-related supply chains as much as possible. Over the years, life cycle assessment has been used extensively to assess agricultural systems and food processing and manufacturing activities, and compare alternatives "from field to fork" and through to food waste management. Notwithstanding the efforts, several methodological aspects of life cycle assessment still need further improvement in order to ensure adequate and robust support for decision making in both business and policy development contexts. This paper discusses the challenges for life cycle assessment arising from the complexity of food systems, and recommends research priorities for both scientific development and improvements in practical implementation. In summary, the intrinsic variability of food production systems requires dedicated modelling approaches, including addressing issues related to: the distinction between technosphere and ecosphere; the most appropriate functional unit; the multi-functionality of biological systems; and the modelling of the emissions and how this links with life cycle impact assessment. Also, data availability and interpretation of the results are two issues requiring further attention, including how to account for consumer behaviour.

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Section: A N U S C R I P Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of life cycle assessment in supporting sustainable agri-food systems: A review of the challenges

Notarnicola

Sala

Antón

et al. 2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

489

273

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Landscape metric parameters are widely used as indicators of biodiversity, water quality and land cover change [29][30][31][32][33][34] and they are still being further developed [35][36][37]. They offer a spatial tool set for analysing entire landscapes, as well as the arrangement and properties of their features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Density of Biogas Power Plants as An Indicator of Bioenergy Generated Transformation of Agricultural Landscapes

et al. 2019

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The increasing use of biogas, produced from energy crops like silage maize, is supposed to noticeably change the structures and patterns of agricultural landscapes in Europe. The main objective of our study is to quantify this assumed impact of intensive biogas production with the example of an agrarian landscape in Northern Germany. Therefore, we used three different datasets; Corine Land Cover (CLC), local agricultural statistics (Agrar-Struktur-Erhebung, ASE), and data on biogas power plants. Via kernel density analysis, we delineated impact zones which represent different levels of bioenergy-generated transformations of agrarian landscapes. We cross-checked the results by the analyses of the land cover and landscape pattern changes from 2000 to 2012 inside the impact zones. We found significant correlations between the installed electrical capacity (IC) and land cover changes. According to our findings, the landscape pattern of cropland—expressed via landscape metrics (mean patch size (MPS), total edge (TE), mean shape index (MSI), mean fractal dimension index (MFRACT)—increased and that of pastures decreased since the beginning of biogas production. Moreover, our study indicates that the increasing number of biogas power plants in certain areas is accompanied with a continuous reduction in crop diversity and a homogenization of land use in the same areas. We found maximum degrees of land use homogenisation in areas with highest IC. Our results show that a Kernel density map of the IC of biogas power plants might offer a suitable first indicator for monitoring and quantifying landscape change induced by biogas production.

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“…Their approach, utilizing a combination of image processing methods, is 6 more promising than previous approaches. Another European-wide study illustrated the potential for 'field patch' segmentation from satellite imagery (Weissteiner et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, whereas the estimates of Yan and Roy (2016) were kept at the field level, Weissteiner et al (2016) aggregated their data to a much coarser scale than individual fields.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection of cropland field parcels from Landsat imagery

Graesser

Ramankutty

2017

Remote Sensing of Environment

118

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A new view on EU agricultural landscapes: Quantifying patchiness to assess farmland heterogeneity

Cited by 32 publications

References 28 publications

The role of life cycle assessment in supporting sustainable agri-food systems: A review of the challenges

The role of life cycle assessment in supporting sustainable agri-food systems: A review of the challenges

Density of Biogas Power Plants as An Indicator of Bioenergy Generated Transformation of Agricultural Landscapes

Detection of cropland field parcels from Landsat imagery

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