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Farmland abandonment is a widespread phenomenon in different parts of the Earth especially in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe where large areas of agricultural land were left uncultivated, state-support and markets for agriculture disappeared and land reforms resulted in massive land ownership transfers following the collapse of socialism. Remote sensing and geographic information system provide powerful tools for identification and analysis of abandoned agricultural land (AAL) at various spatial and temporal scales. Here we present an approach to AAL extraction from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images, provided in the frame of the European Copernicus program. This study aims to investigate and map the spatial distribution of AAL on the foothill of Little Carpathians and in the Danubian Lowland, Slovakia. The presented case study showed the possibility of the use of Sentinel images and the object-based image analysis in the process of AAL identification that may improve the transfer of scientific knowledge to the local agri-environmental monitoring and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Oxbow lakes, reaches that were cut off from a river during river straightening works, can accumulate during flooding metal-rich suspended sediments transported by a river from mining-impacted source areas and other anthropogenic sources. Additionally, the anthropogenic use of oxbow lakes may significantly impact the sediment-bound metal concentrations. The aim was to determine the dominating effect in the sediments' enrichment in heavy metals. Materials and methods: We collected surface sediments (< 10-cm depth) from seven oxbow lakes once connected to the Tisza River (a transboundary river in Central and Eastern Europe). Four of the oxbows were located on the active floodplain, while three oxbows were at the reclaimed side (i.e., outside the flood defense levee). The sediment samples were subjected to total metal analyses (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) and sequential chemical extractions. Results and discussion: Contamination indices (geoaccumulation index (Igeo) and pollution load index (PLI)) show a moderate but significant metal pollution of oxbow lakes situated on the active floodplain (Igeo (Pb) 0.95–1.25, PLI 2.1–2.8) and an overall unpolluted to slightly polluted status of those at the reclaimed side (Igeo (Pb) − 0.36–0.51, PLI 1.3–1.7). Additionally, the geochemical fractionation of the target metals showed that Cd and Zn were the most labile (Cd 29–48%, Zn 18–37% of non-residual proportions), indicating their environmental significance. Conclusions: Canonical discriminant analysis of the sediment-bound metal concentrations revealed the prevalent role of the river connection over the anthropogenic use in controlling the metal enrichment of oxbow sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze and assess studies published from 1992 to 2019 and listed in the Web of Science (WOS) and Current Contents (CC) databases, and to identify agricultural abandonment by application of remote sensing (RS) optical and microwave data. We selected 73 studies by applying structured queries in a field tag form and Boolean operators in the WOS portal and by expert analysis. An expert assessment yielded the topical picture concerning the definitions and criteria for the identification of abandoned agricultural land (AAL). The analysis also showed the absence of similar field research, which serves not only for validation, but also for understanding the process of agricultural abandonment. The benefit of the fusion of optical and radar data, which supports the application of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, is also evident. Knowledge attained from the literary sources indicated that there exists, in the world literature, a well-covered problem of abandonment identification or biomass estimation, as well as missing works dealing with the assessment of the natural accretion of biomass in AAL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]