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Archive:Agri-environmental indicator - landscape state and diversity

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Data from October 2012. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.

This background article contains a fact sheet of the agri-environmental indicator (AEI) Lanscape - State and diversity. Together with other fact sheets it provides an overview of the state of the agri-environmental indicators in the European Union (EU).

Indicator definition

The landscape state and diversity indicator describes the main characteristics of the agrarian landscape, in terms of structure of the landscape, cultural influence on the potential natural vegetation due to human activities, and societal awareness of the rural landscape.
In the agri-environmental context the indicator describes:

  • Dominance and internal structure of the agrarian landscape in the context of the wider landscape matrix
  • The hemeroby state, which indicates the degree of influence on land cover and state due to human (agricultural) activities;
  • The interest and perception that society has for the agrarian landscape 

Measurements

Main indicator, supporting indicators

The indicator is structured in three components:

  • Landscape physical structure
  • Hemeroby index
  • Societal awareness of agrarian landscape

Links with other indicators

The indicator "Lanscape - State and diversity" is linked with following other indicators:

Main statistical findings

Key messages 

Europe has a great variety of agrarian landscapes that reflect differences in biophysical conditions, farm management practices and cultural heritage. In such a context farmers play a crucial role in transforming, managing and maintaining landscapes. Capturing the complexity and multiple functions of European landscapes in one single indicator is not possible, thus three components, each describing a very different aspect of the agrarian landscape are presented instead. Such three components are: 

  • the physical structure of the agricultural landscape, intended as land cover and its spatial organisation as a product of land management; 
  • the hemeroby state as a proxy for the influence exerted by farming practices on land cover and state;
  • the societal awareness of the landscape, as the society perceives, assesses and values landscape quality, plans, manages, and uses the landscape for productive or non productive purposes.

Monitoring such three components will describe if the trend in landscape structure leads to a higher homogeneity or diversity; how trends in farming practices influence the hemeroby index; if society is becoming more aware of the services the agrarian landscape provides.
Main messages derived from the components are:

  • The structure of the agrarian landscape in terms of dominance of agricultural land use and diversity of crops is organised as follows (the areal unit of reference is 10 km x 10 km squares, each corresponding to a “landscape”): 34% of landscapes are dominated by the agrarian landscape (agricultural areas cover more than 6 600 ha in the reference areal unit of 10 000 ha); 23.5% of landscapes are mid-dominated (agricultural areas range from 3 300 to 6 600 ha); in 42.5% of occurrences other landscape types are dominating (the agricultural area is smaller than 3300 ha). In terms of diversity 37% of the agrarian landscape hosts more that 12 different crops (or groups of crops similar from a landscape perspective); 49% shows mid-diversity (6 to 12 crop groups); 14% is characterised by a low diversity (less than 6 crops groups) (Figure 1). The index is calculated on 10 km x 10 km cells to allow upscaling results to administrative units (regional and Country level).
  • Agriculture greatly influences the values of the hemeroby index. 43% of the agrarian landscape in the EU is assigned to low to medium hemeroby levels, meaning a relatively small deviation from potential vegetation (classes 2 to 4a in Table 1), the remaining 57% is characterised by medium-high values of of the index (classes 4b to 5b in Table 1), showing higher deviations (Figure 2). High Nature Value farmland is accounted for in the 43% share.
  • Social awareness of the agrarian landscape, measured according to indicators (surface of protected agricultural areas for ecological and/or scenic values, farm tourism and number of certified products -food and wine- linked to landscape) that describe the interest of people and society for this landscape type, is medium to high in 111 NUTS2 Regions, and medium to low in 149 NUTS2 Regions (Figure 3). The threshold is set at the maximum of the Gaussian distribution of values of the composite indicator in EU NUTS2 regions, which corresponds to value 7 in Figure 10. Currently the New Member States are characterised by lower scores of the indicator on social awareness than older MS. This does not mean that their landscapes do not have high aesthetic qualities, but rather that having entered the EU in 2004 their tradition concerning i.e. EU quality schemes still has to consolidate. In this sense there is much room for improvement, some positive trends are shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5.

 

 

 


 

Data sources and availability

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Context

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Further Eurostat information

Publications

Main tables

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Database

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Dedicated section

Methodology / Metadata

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Source data for tables, figures and maps (MS Excel)

Other information

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External links

See also

Notes


[[Category:<Subtheme category name(s)>|Statistical article]] [[Category:<Statistical article>|Statistical article]]

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