Identification of early abandonment in cropland through radar‐based coherence data and application of a Random‐Forest model

Abstract

In the context of increased pressures on land for food and non‐food production, it is relevant to understand better, which land resources have become unused and abandoned and where these lands are. Data on where these lands are and what their extend is are not collected in regular statistics. In this paper, we present an approach to detect signs of abandonment in cropping land using radar coherence data. The methodology was tested in the Spanish regions of Albacete and Soria where agricultural land abandonment is a common process. The results show that land abandonment detection using radar coherence data works well for the region of Albacete in arable lands. The radar‐based analysis is a relatively simple method to detect land abandonment in an early to longer term state and can therefore be applied once developed and tested further in other regions to larger areas of the EU where land abandonment is serious and needs monitoring and policy response. The applicability of the method to Soria and Emilia Romagna (Italy) regions shows that there are still challenges to overcome to make the method more widely applicable for detecting land abandonment in other environmental zones of Europe. Lack of reliable training and validation data, like Land Parcel Identification Systems data, in regions is one of the challenges in this respect.

Analysis of the spatial differentiation and driving force of arable land abandonment and non-grain in the hilly mountainous areas of Gannan

“…Based on the three-survey data, this paper uses GIS technology to identify the types of arable land cultivation attributes of "uncultivated" and "planting non-crops", which, to a certain extent, integrates the two issues of abandonment of arable land and non-grain of arable land. Combining the results of previous research on abandonment and non-grain [ [37] , [38] , [39] , [40] ],Although the level of arable land abandonment is low compared to the level of arable land non-grain, it does not mean that arable land abandonment is a lower priority for remediation, both of them have the same impact on food security to a certain extent, and will cause some damage to the tillage layer of arable land, both of them need to focus on the management of the arable land with a longer abandonment period. Arable land that has been left fallow for a long period of time is prone to soil fertility loss, and it is difficult to replant the land.…”

Perennial biomass cropping and use: Shaping the policy ecosystem in European countries

“…Recent programmes, including the EU MAGIC project ( https://magic‐h2020.eu/ ), have worked to improve these definitions and quantify potential land area to better evaluate the impact of land‐use change to PBC production (Elbersen et al, 2018 ; European Commission et al, 2022 ; Von Cossel, Lewandowski, et al, 2019 ). At a European level, spatial analyses are beginning to use remote sensing to identify abandoned, degraded or contaminated lands that could move from annual to perennial crop production, that is, available for PBCs, afforestation or rewilding (European Commission et al, 2022 ; Meijninger et al, 2022 ).…”

Valorisation of marginal agricultural land in the bioeconomy

“…Early stage identification of land abandonment is necessary to maximize exploitation of marginal land. The study of Meijninger et al (2022) introduces a novel approach for identifying arable land abandonment using radar coherence data in combination with a Random Forest model. The results of this study show that radar-based analysis is a relatively simple method to detect land abandonment at an early stage and allow monitoring and rapid policy response.…”