Practicing Critical Zone Observation in Agricultural Landscapes: Communities, Technology, Environment and Archaeology

Rachel Opitz (), Philippe De Smedt, Victorino Mayoral-Herrera, Stefano Campana, Marco Vieri, Eamonn Baldwin, Carolina Perna, Daniele Sarri and Jeroen Verhegge
Additional contact information
Rachel Opitz: Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
Philippe De Smedt: Department of Environment & Department of Archaeology, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
Victorino Mayoral-Herrera: Instituto Arqueologia Mérida, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 06800 Mérida, Spain
Stefano Campana: Landscape Archaeology & Remote Sensing Lab, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche e dei Beni Culturali, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy
Marco Vieri: Department of Agricultural, Alimentary, Environmental and Forestry Sciences, University of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Eamonn Baldwin: Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
Carolina Perna: Department of Agricultural, Alimentary, Environmental and Forestry Sciences, University of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Daniele Sarri: Department of Agricultural, Alimentary, Environmental and Forestry Sciences, University of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Jeroen Verhegge: Department of Environment & Department of Archaeology, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: The aims of agricultural land management change continuously, reflecting shifts in wider societal priorities. Currently, these include addressing the climate crisis, promoting environmental sustainability, and supporting the livelihoods of rural communities while ensuring food security. Working toward these aims requires information on the character of agricultural land and how dynamic processes influence it. Remote and near-surface sensing data are important sources of information on the characteristics of soils, plants, water, topography, and related processes. Sensing data are collected, analysed, and used in decision-making by specialists in multiple domains connected to land management. While progress has been made to connect the use of sensing data across agricultural and environmental applications under the umbrella of integrated sustainable land management, archaeological and heritage uses of these data remain largely disconnected. This creates barriers to accounting for the impacts of past human activities on contemporary agricultural landscapes through the alteration of soils, topography, and plant communities. In parallel, it hinders the creation of knowledge about the archaeological features which form an essential part of the heritage of agricultural landscapes. The ipaast-czo project explores the potential of a coordinated approach across all these domains, which would reduce these barriers and provide benefits by better integrating information generated using sensing. To do so, both conceptual and practical barriers to developing shared practices and how these might be overcome were considered. In this study, a conceptual framework designed to create a shared understanding of how agricultural landscapes work and enable collaboration around their management was proposed. This framework treats present-day rural agricultural landscapes as Critical Zones: complex entities shaped by long-term human–environment interactions including contemporary farming. Practitioners in precision agriculture and archaeological remote and near-surface sensing, as well as users of these data, were engaged using workshops and interviews. The relationships between practitioners’ objectives, data requirements for their applications, and their perceptions of the benefits and disadvantages of changing working practices were interrogated. The conceptual framework and assessment of practical benefits and challenges emerging from this work provide a foundation for leveraging shared sensing data and methods for long-term integrated sustainable land management.

Keywords: Critical Zone; precision agriculture; remote sensing; near-surface geophysics; proximal soil sensing; archaeology; sustainability; land management; interoperability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/179/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/179/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:1:p:179-:d:1026294

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().