Land Use Indicators in the Context of Land Use Efficiency

Barbara Kalisz (), Krystyna Żuk-Gołaszewska, Wioleta Radawiec and Janusz Gołaszewski
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Barbara Kalisz: Department of Soil Science and Microbiology, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland
Krystyna Żuk-Gołaszewska: Department of Agrotechnology and Agribusiness, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland
Wioleta Radawiec: Department of Genetics, Plant Breeding and Bioresource Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland
Janusz Gołaszewski: Center for Bioeconomy and Renewable Energies, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-18

Abstract: In recent decades, the land use changes induced by various economic activities in agricultural ecosystems have affected many aspects of human life. This is the reason why land use change is considered as one of the agriculture-related environmental impacts in a sustainability assessment of food and bio-based products. At the same time, the methodology applied for the quantification of land use change effects is still under intensive research, stimulating scientific discussions. The overall objective of this paper is to fill the gap in knowledge of responsible and sustainable land use management. Specifically, the research provides a comprehensive set of land use change indicators in the context of land use change and land use efficiency. The indicators can be measured based on publicly available databases with the applicability to agricultural sustainability assessment of land use change on a local, regional and global scale. The high share of artificial land and dominant agricultural use of land with low land use intensity were noted in Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Slovenia, Cyprus, Croatia, Finland, Germany, and United Kingdom. However, land use efficiency was also low. In turn, heterogeneous land cover (but less artificial areas than in other EU countries) and heterogeneous land uses with diverse land use intensity were noted in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden. The challenge in future research could be aggregation of different indicators in assessing the similarity of land use between countries.

Keywords: sustainable land use; land cover; land use intensity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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