Hotspots of Agricultural Ecosystem Services and Farmland Biodiversity Overlap with Areas at Risk of Land Abandonment in Japan

Keiko Sasaki, Stefan Hotes, Tomohiro Ichinose, Tomoko Doko and Volkmar Wolters
Additional contact information
Keiko Sasaki: Department of Animal Ecology & Systematics, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Heinrich-Buff Ring 26-32, 35392 Giessen, Germany
Stefan Hotes: Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chuo University, 1-13-27 Kasuga, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8551, Japan
Tomohiro Ichinose: Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa 252-0882, Japan
Tomoko Doko: Nature & Science Consulting Co., Ltd., Yokohama 231-0032, Japan
Volkmar Wolters: Department of Animal Ecology & Systematics, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Heinrich-Buff Ring 26-32, 35392 Giessen, Germany

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-20

Abstract: Agriculture provides a wide range of ecosystem services and has the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation. In Japan, many of the resources associated with agroecosystems are threatened by farmland abandonment. Identifying where and to what extent agricultural ecosystem services and farmland biodiversity are affected by farmland abandonment is essential for developing effective strategies to counter the potential loss of these services and the biological communities that support them. Our study aimed to examine how a set of indicators for ecosystem services and biodiversity linked to agroecosystems (proportions of land dedicated to rice production and other agricultural production, proportion of agricultural land on slopes potentially providing landscape aesthetics, proportion of villages promoting rural tourism, and densities of forest edges and irrigation ponds in agricultural land) are distributed at the municipal level across the Japanese Archipelago, and to analyze their spatial patterns in relation to the distribution of farmland abandonment. It was hypothesized that hotspots of agricultural ecosystem services and farmland biodiversity occur in areas at risk of farmland abandonment owing to shared drivers. The cluster analysis identified four distinct ecosystem service bundle types, two of them representing areas specializing in agricultural production, while the other two provided high levels of cultural services and habitats for diverse biological communities. The latter two bundles were located in hilly and mountainous areas and accounted for 58% of rice production, 27% of other agricultural production, 77% of landscape aesthetics, 77% of rural tourism, 64% of forest edges, and 87% of irrigation ponds in Japan. In support of the hypothesis, farmland abandonment was pronounced in these areas, with 64% of recently abandoned fields located where 44% of agricultural land was found. This spatial overlap suggests that substantial losses of ecosystem services and biodiversity may occur if current patterns of farmland abandonment continue. In order to prevent large-scale losses of agricultural ecosystem services and farmland biodiversity, measures to counteract the ongoing abandonment trends should prioritize hilly and mountainous areas, and future studies should further evaluate the multiple functions of agricultural areas to improve policies that aim to ensure sustainable development of rural areas in Japan.

Keywords: agriculture; farmland loss; hilly and mountainous area; socio-ecological system; spatial pattern (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/10/1031/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/10/1031/ (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:10:y:2021:i:10:p:1031-:d:648384

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 ().