Landscape features (LF) in agricultural land have potentially positive effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services, consequently their importance has been recognized by several European sectoral policies, amongst which the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and some key components of the EU biodiversity legislation. As the amount of landscape features is often considered an important factor for agricultural biodiversity, indicator development was needed to assess policy performance with respect to biodiversity.
European Commission services (Eurostat, JRC, AGRI, ENV, DEFIS) have agreed to bundle resources for developing a policy-relevant EU survey for the consistent quantification of the area of different types of landscape features at MS level, and possibly at regional level (NUTS2). The Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey LUCAS landscape features module was designed to fulfil this need and was first implemented in 2022.
A total of 92,633 quadrats were surveyed for the presence of landscape features (encompassing 3.8 million sub-points). At EU level, it is estimated that landscape features cover 5.6% of agricultural land, with the larger share for Woody features (3.2%), followed by Grassy (1.9%), Wet (0.4%), and Stony (0.2%) types.
After delving into a comprehensive analysis of landscape feature distributions across the European Union, providing estimates at both national and sub-national levels. A detailed comparative analysis further evaluates the results from the LUCAS LF 2022 survey against various data sources such as previous LUCAS transects and the Copernicus Small Woody Features, enriching our understanding of landscape feature dynamics and their regional variations. This comparative approach not only highlights the nuances in landscape feature estimation but also assists in validating the survey methodology, offering a robust framework for future enhancements
D'ANDRIMONT Raphael;
CZUCZ Balint;
DE MARCHI Davide;
GALLEGO Javier;
IORDANOV Momchil;
KOEBLE Renate;
MUSAVI Talie;
SKOIEN Jon;
MARTINEZ SANCHEZ Laura;
TERRES Jean-Michel;
2024-09-16
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC135966
978-92-68-20569-3 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 40017,
OP KJ-01-24-007-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC135966,
10.2760/5923183 (online),
