A new view on EU agricultural landscapes: Quantifying patchiness to assess farmland heterogeneity

Mapping and assessment of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes as required by the EU biodiversity policy need a better characterisation of this landscape typology according to its ecological and cultural values. Such need should be accommodated by a better discrimination of those landscape characteristics linked to the capacity of providing ecosystem services and socio-cultural benefits. Often, these key variables depend on the degree of farmland heterogeneity and landscape patterns. Segmentation and landscape metrics (edge density and image texture), derived from a pan-European multi-temporal and multi-spectral remote sensing dataset are employed to generate a consistent European indicator of farmland heterogeneity, the Farmland Heterogeneity Indicator (FHI). Five degrees of FHI are mapped on a wall-to-wall basis (spatial resolution 250 m) over European agricultural landscapes including natural grasslands. Image texture led to a clear improvement of the indicator compared to the pure application of Edge Density, in particular for a better detection of small patches. Additionally to the qualitative indicator an approximate patch size is attributed to each class, allowing an indicative assessment of European field sizes. According to CORINE land cover, pastures and heterogeneous land cover classes were identified as classes with highest degree of FHI, while agroforestry and olive groves appear in average less heterogeneous. Validation has been performed on continental and regional scale resulting in general good agreement with independently derived data.

WEISSTEINER Christof;  GARCIA FECED Celia;  PARACCHINI Maria-Luisa; 

2015-12-18

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

JRC97835

1470-160X,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X1500518X,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC97835,   

10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.09.032,