Global Land-Use Analysis in the Western Mediterranean area by integrating information from European Agri-Census data

In the last decades, Mediterranean agricultural systems have experienced significant changes in land use and agricultural practices under the pressure of the worldwide market competition, the effects of the global changes and the need to contain the environmental impacts (Bajocco et al. 2012). The Mediterranean is characterized by peculiar traits (climate, soil, orography, traditions, etc.) which are rooted in history and allow us to distinguish this agriculture from those developed in the different European regions (Debolini et al., 2018).

The study aims to describe and interpret the expansion and specialization of agricultural systems in the Western Mediterranean areas in terms of land use (cereals, forage, vegetables, etc.) by using the data from the agricultural censuses of France (FR), Italy (IT), Portugal (PT) and Spain (ES) over the 2000-2010 period. In this study, first, we chose to limit the analysis to four European countries in order to improve the accuracy and the homogeneity of the data to process. Secondly, we matched each record of data-base (single municipality) to its geographical position (Land Unit = LU) to make possible the selection of the portions of territory that can be classified as Mediterranean, according to the EU classification (Sundseth, 2009).Third, we had to verify the agreement of the different categories of crop grouping used in the different national agricultural censuses and to integrate any missing information.

For the present study, the variables selected were: TAA (Total agricultural area), UAA (Utilized agricultural area), AL (Arable lands), PWC (Permanent Woody Crops), PFC (Permanent fodder crops), and RS (Remaining Surface) totaling a dataset with approximately 16,000 records. In addition, all records of the database were georeferenced with GIS to enable the geographical evaluation of the spatial data distribution. The LAU data analysis was carried out following the four steps: (1) level of land occupation by agricultural systems; (2) patterns of crop groups in UAA composition; (3) attribution to each LAU of an agricultural typology (AT), resulting from the combination of the two previous features; (4) calculation two indexes: Expansion Index (EXP) and the Specialization Index (SPE).

Results showed lowering overtime of the TFA, UAA, and PG areas and an increase of IA and RS. The number of identified ATs was rising at the expense of their extension. This phenomenon led to a fragmentation in ATs spatial distribution within the same geographical region. Even if the range of time was short for a global analysis, we identified different interesting trends of agricultural systems, which could be confirmed with the next census expected in 2022. These aspects will be useful to make a correct diagnosis about the current Mediterranean agroecosystems and to verify if they can preserve agricultural productivity and increase the resilience of rural societies.