Actively cultivated and abandoned terraces in Nepal. Photo: Suresh Chaudhari

Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-Use Change Phenomenon

Short Description

The world is facing a looming scarcity of land necessary to secure agricultural commodities production and experience competition from other land uses. At the same time, evidence shows agricultural land abandonment is a global land change process with a recent spread of abandonment in the Global South. Research on agricultural land abandonment is disproportional compared to other land change processes, such as deforestation and agricultural expansion. At the same time, agricultural land abandonment has strong implications to the environment and societal well-being, including food sequrity. There are many challenges to understand the agricultural land abandonment process stemming from the fuzzy definition of abandonment, the ability to measure abandonment patterns, the diversity of factors driving agricultural land abandonment, and its environmental consequences.

Through seminars, thematic workshops, reports, and research papers, our working group will advance understanding agricultural land abandonment process, namely, but not exclusively:

  1. role of individual decision-making and behavioral mechanisms regarding agricultural land abandonment;
  2. progressing on mapping agricultural land abandonment;
  3. the role of rural-urban transition in the relationship to abandonment;
  4. an alternative to agriculture reuse of formerly cultivated lands;
  5. policies to mitigate, but also foster retirement of cultivated lands;
  6. environmental  and societal impacts of agricultural land abandonment, including food sequrity;
  7. agricultural land abandonment - food security interlinks.

Goals and Objectives

The main goal of the group is to understand better the patterns, underling causes, and implications of land abandonment in the connection to sustainable land use. Through various research, education and practical activities, we aim to:

  • strengthen understanding of the global land abandonment drivers and patterns, especially in the Global South;
  • assess the implications of abandonment on the environment and the societal well-being in the era of telecoupled global systems;
  • synthesize the existing knowledge on the abandonment process;
  • engage the land system science community in studying abandonment and evaluating implications from different perspectives.

GLP Methods: Econometrics, Game Theory, GIS, Institutional Analysis, Integrative Assessments, Interdisciplinary methods, Modelling, Participatory methods, Qualitative social science methods (interviews, observations, document review, surveys), Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis, Synthesis/meta-analysis/meta-study, Visualization/Scenarios

 

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Related Information

News

March 10, 2023

The role of harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) products to reveal multiple trajectories and determinants of cropland abandonment in subtropical mountainous areas

A new article in the Journal of Environmental Management took Nanjing County of China as an example and found great suitability of harmonized Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images to distinguish multiple trajectories of cropland abandonment in subtropical mountainous areas.

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Jobs

March 2, 2023

Postdoc in satellite remote sensing and land-use modeling of grassland management in Europe

University of Copenhagen

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Sunday, March 26, 2023

Two-year postdoc opportunity at the University of Copenhagen with skills in satellite remote sensing and land-use modeling of grassland management, underuse, and silvopasture in Europe, including Armenia. Deadline: 26 March 2023

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Event

February 19, 2023

PhD course: Global farmland abandonment: patterns, drivers and implications

Monday, July 3, 2023 (All day) to Friday, July 7, 2023 (All day)

The GLP Working Group on Agricultural Land Abandonment has organized its first interdisciplinary summer PhD school, which will take place at the University of Copenhagen 3-7 July 2023.

Learn more and apply

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