A holistic approach to land system dynamics – The Monfurado case in Alentejo, Portugal

Highlights

• Understanding land systems dynamics in an integrated way remains a challenge.

• Spatial analysis provides useful information on trends of change, but time lags can occur.

• Local perspectives apprehend details and dynamics that cannot be captured through a global spatial analysis.

• A combined methodological approach can fill this gap.

Abstract

Understanding land system dynamics is fundamental for policy-making from local to global scale. Land system is a combination of land use, land management and territorial practices. To attain such complete information about landscape structures is a challenging task. Aiming to deepen knowledge on land systems, we applied a methodology meant to achieve a broader understanding of dynamics in the Sítio de Monfurado (SM), a Natura 2000 site and holder of High Nature Value farming systems. To do so, we combined spatial analysis of land system changes with a participatory approach designated as Territory Game. While the spatial analysis shows little change in the SM land systems, the territory is perceived as fast-changing by the territorial actors (e.g., stakeholders with an explicit role in territorial development). At both scales, and in agreement with literature, we find trends of simplification and intensification in land systems, typically associated with the reduction of multifunctionality. The combination of both approaches contributed to the understanding of past changes, the drivers that induce such changes, how these are interpreted and, how to act upon them in the future. The proposed combined methodology can bring new useful insights for policy-makers, although scaling from local to broader scale remains a challenge.

Introduction

Land systems can be defined as the combination of land use and territorial practices (Turner et al., 2007), where social, economic and political flows meet biophysical constraints. Land systems are dynamic, resulting from interactions of the social-ecological systems that operate across spatial and temporal scales (Verburg et al., 2013, 2015). Over the last decades, the fast pace of social, technological and economic change lead to abrupt changes in land use and land cover (Jetz et al., 2007a; Verburg et al., 2015). These changes affected the composition, function, and services provided by ecosystems (Polasky et al., 2011; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011), with consequences for human well-being (Haines-Young and Potschin, 2010; Wu, 2013).

The Mediterranean Basin is characterized by poor and shallow soils, dry and hot summers with a limited availability of water, and mild wet winters (Caraveli, 2000). Nonetheless, the region has a long history of agricultural use and includes a large diversity of land use systems well adapted to its harsh conditions. Traditional Mediterranean land systems are often extensive and multifunctional (Blondel, 2006), such as silvo-pastoral and agroforestry systems, and provide several ecosystem goods and services on top of food production (Bugalho et al., 2011; Torralba et al., 2016). Some, but not exclusively, traditional Mediterranean farming systems fall under the concept of High Nature Value (HNV) farming, hosting a high diversity of habitats and species of interest (Pinto-Correia et al., 2018a). Moreover, these systems are also a type of cultural heritage, sources of traditional and quality products and rural employment (Moreno et al., 2018). These low-intensity farming systems, which are usually characterized by a small need of external inputs, continue to disappear in favor of more input needing systems, oriented to the global markets (Jepsen et al., 2015). This is leading to a detachment of farming systems from local needs, with an increased vulnerability of farmers (Cumming et al., 2014; Hamann et al., 2015), but also loss of cultural heritage (Plieninger et al., 2006), habitats, species of high conservation value and ecosystem functions (Bugalho et al., 2011). Therefore, it is urgent to enhance knowledge about the Mediterranean land systems, the changes that occurred, the drivers of change and ultimately which measures need to be taken to conserve valued systems that are dependent on human management.

Mediterranean land systems face a number of common challenges including the management of natural resources (Bugalho et al., 2011; Galli et al., 2015) under severe environmental conditions, which are expected to aggravate (Giorgi and Lionello, 2008), with consequences to the productivity and sustainability of agricultural and food systems. Debolini et al. (2018) argued that social and demographic factors, next to institutional and biogeographic, are determinants in the trajectory of change in Mediterranean land systems. Such factors of change are commonly linked with broad-scale processes (Lambin et al., 2001; Jetz et al., 2007b; Malek et al., 2018). Yet, how local actors and institutions interact with such broad-scale trends through their rules and decisions can influence outcomes, and in turn cumulatively influence global trends (Magliocca et al., 2018; van Vliet et al., 2015). Thus, people and their choices, guided by their perception, within their opportunities and constraints, significantly affect the system (Gorddard et al., 2016; Fernandes et al., 2019)

Recent studies have characterized main land system dynamics and their drivers, taking social-economic aspects into consideration (Debolini et al., 2018; Malek and Verburg, 2017; van Vliet et al., 2015). Yet, these regional-scale analyses tend to disregard how people perceive such changes and how they interact with their surroundings. Therefore, multiscale approaches that allow data collection at a broader and localized levels are needed to enhance understanding on the underlying drivers behind land system changes (Magliocca et al., 2018). Through participatory approaches it is possible to tap on the rules, values and knowledge influencing land system decisions (Gorddard et al., 2016), and gain a better understanding how these are influencing development trajectories.

This paper aims to arrive at a combined understanding of land use, land management, and territorial practices by integrating information attained using distinct methodologies. More specifically, this paper analyzes land system dynamics within a specific Mediterranean case study using two distinct sources of information (i) a temporal analysis of spatial data at the Mediterranean level, and (ii) the perception of territorial actors about the territory dynamics, drivers of change and future perspectives, collected through a participatory approach, the territory game. Through the combination of the two approaches, we sought to answer the following questions: 1) Which are the changes detected by spatial analysis and how do they relate to those identified by the Territory Game? 2) What are the driving forces of change? and 3) Are the changes towards a desirable future? And if not, 4) What actions must be taken towards land system dynamics moving the territory in a sustainable path?

With the results attained, we expect to provide not only a broader understanding of drivers of change at the case study level but also insights of how to manage change in the future.