Europa is de laatste honderd jaar enorm verstedelijkt, maar óók groener geworden. Sinds 1900 nam het bosareaal met een derde toe; landbouwgrond is er steeds minder nodig. Promovendus Richard Fuchs reconstrueert overigens veranderingen in landgebruik, om de invloed ervan op klimaatverandering…
Land abandonment is a widespread phenomenon in agricultural systems, especially in former communist countries of Eastern and South-eastern Europe. Moreover, Croatia was affected by acts of war which enhanced the depopulation of marginal areas impelling further land abandonment. Agricultural…
Context In Europe and the United States, wolf–human conflict has increased as wolf populations have recovered and recolonised human-dominated ecosystems. These conflicts may lead to negative attitudes towards wolves and often complicate wolf management. Wolf attacks on bear-hunting hounds (…
Electrocution on overhead power structures negatively affects avian populations in diverse ecosystems worldwide, contributes to the endangerment of raptor populations in Europe and Africa, and is a major driver of legal action against electric utilities in North America. We investigated factors…
The European Commission Directorate-General for the Environment (DG Environment) and the European Environmental Agency (EEA) have identified soil organic matter conservation and mitigation of soil loss by erosion as priorities for the collection of policy-relevant soil data at the European scale…
There has been a concerted effort by the international scientific community to understand the multiple causes and patterns of land-cover change to support sustainable land management. Here, we examined biophysical suitability, and a novel integrated index of “Economic Pressure on Land” (EPL) to…
Hydrological extremes are major weather related disasters, but little is known about their long‐term patterns in the context of environmental change. Better understanding of damaging rainfall (e.g. rainfall‐erosivity events) occurring at different time‐scales has important implications for…
PURPOSE: Concern about the environmental impact of agriculture caused by intensification is growing as large amounts of nutrients and contaminants are introduced into the environment. The aim of this paper is to identify the geogenic and agricultural controls on the elemental composition of…
Since the 1950s, intensification and scale enlargement of agriculture have changed agricultural landscapes across Europe. The intensification and scale enlargement of farming was initially driven by the large-scale application of synthetic fertilizers, mechanization and subsidies of the European…
Since the late 1980s, sustainable land management is one of the objectives of the European Commission in Less Favoured Areas. In this paper, we investigate the economic and environmental sustainability of farming systems in two less favoured areas in Centro and Alentejo areas of Portugal. The…
During the communist regime, Romania’s planned economy focused exclusively on production neglecting the environment protection. The lack of less polluting production technologies and of environmental protection measures led to excessive pollution in certain industrialized areas. This is the case…
Modern alley cropping designs, with trees aligned in rows and adapted to operating farming machinery, have been suggested for Europe. This paper explores the potential for adoption of cork oak (Quercus suber L.) agroforestry in Portugal and estimates the potential carbon sequestration. Spatial…