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EU-member states are obliged to designate Natura2000 sites for habitat protection. Natura2000 sites comprise approximately 18% of the terrestrial area of the EU. On average, around 22% of Natura2000 sites are covered by agricultural land use, such as intensive cropland and more extensively managed land. Particularly in regions with high proportions of agricultural land use in Natura2000 sites, habitat protection is closely linked with the intensity of agricultural land use. Thus, it is important to understand dynamics between intensive and extensive land use. Denmark, where Natura2000 sites comprise approximately 8% of the terrestrial area, is the EU member state with the highest proportion of agricultural land use in Natura2000 sites. The Habitat Directive (HD) was implemented in Denmark in 2003. This implied increased focus from authorities on extensification of agricultural land use in Natura2000 sites. We applied data from agricultural registers to test if the implementation of the HD had a significant effect on extensification of agricultural land use within Natura2000 sites compared to areas outside Natura2000. We assessed area of extensive land use in 2013 and change in area of extensive land use for two periods: From 2000–2003, before the implementation of the HD and from 2003 to 2013, after its implementation. In order to control for the influences of biophysical constraints on agricultural intensity, we included information on slopes and peat soil. Results from a regression analysis indicate that even if influences of peat soils and slopes are taken into account, Natura2000 sites are positively related to the extent of extensive land use in 2013 and to the magnitude of extensification. Furthermore, this relation is more significant in the period after 2003, indicating that the implementation of the HD had an extensifying effect on agricultural land use within Nautra2000 sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green Bio-Refineries (GBRs) have economic and environmental potentials through changing land use from cereals to grass production and provision of grass-based protein feed for livestock production and other valuable byproducts. However, the potentials are dependent on local conditions of the GBRs, such as land productivity, environmental sensitivity and transport distances for feedstock as well as the regional economy which GBRs are a part of. In this paper, we compare the total (direct, indirect and induced) effects of different location choices of GBRs in Denmark at different (municipal, regional, national) scales − a key step for decisions about development of GBRs from both investors' and authorities' perspectives. We integrate a local life-cycle assessment (LCA), a geographic information system (GIS) analysis and an economic-environmental input-output (EEIO) based model (LINE) into a common framework (GIS-LCA-EEIO). We show that locating GBRs in Western Denmark, where the soils are primarily sandy and livestock densities are high, generates higher socio-economic gains than in Eastern Denmark, where the soils are primarily loamy and the concentrations of livestock are lower. We conclude by sketching out priority areas for developing GBRs and discuss the policy implications of the results within the context of development of a bio-based economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Exploring how land use and the management of agro-ecosystems may evolve in the future is important for advancing scientific understanding and for informing policy makers and land managers of ways to respond and adapt sustainably to future change. In this paper, we investigate the future land-use trajectories of a semi-arid Mediterranean agro-ecosystem in south-eastern Spain using two different approaches: Markovian cellular automata and an agent-based approach. Methodologically, the paper offers a systematic method for agent parameterization to facilitate the development of an empirical agent-based scenario analysis. This approach is achieved by integrating information from cadastral and recent land-use maps, agricultural statistics, and sampled survey data. Through this integration, an effective approach is provided for up-scaling an agent typology from the sampled survey to the landscape scale. The output of the up-scaling provides a basis for modeling the aggregate effect of the responses of different types of farmers to environmental and policy changes across the study region. Empirically, the paper highlights the contrasting futures that the studied agro-ecosystem could have depending on the direction and intensity of the changes in environmental and policy conditions. The Markovian-CA land-use projection indicates further decline of rain-fed agriculture and describes the scope of the expansion of irrigated agriculture. The agent-based scenario analysis shows that the future of irrigated agriculture is highly sensitive to the expected future water scarcity. The analysis also reveals that the way that the future environmental and policy changes are conceptualized and presented to farmers and the range of different farmers in the agro-ecosystem determine the extent of the resulting aggregate effects of individual farmer reactions to future changes at the landscape scale. The empirical evidence of this research emphasizes the need for policy makers to consider multiple and interacting factors, including the design of interventions and likely farmer responses, which shape future agricultural land-use trajectories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]