The impact of European landscape transitions on the provision of landscape services

The European countryside has changed substantially over the past decades as a result of European policy, agricultural technology changes, and global markets. We studied how the landscape has changed in six case study areas in five countries, and assessed what the impact is on the provision of landscape services in the past 25 years.
We classified land cover changes as land use transitions for the case study areas (in Denmark, Netherlands, Italy, Greece and Romania). Also specific landscape features such as hedgerows, tree rows, and terraces were included. The change in landscape service provision has been assessed based on the observed transitions, and are discussed in the context of the DPSIR-FESP framework.
In the cases studied, we observe a large variation in influence of various EU policies, and in transition processes and societal context reflected in drivers of change. In the past 25 years the observed changes in land use are relatively small, with a dominance of urbanisation and afforestation processes. However, the specific landscape services affected by land use change in the cases studied are clearly reflected in a decline in food and feed production services, whereas appreciation of the scenery effects are positive in the cases with low urbanisation pressure and negative in places with higher (peri-)urbanisation pressure.
Although there are many EU policies that lead to land use change, the associated landscape transitions and resulting changes in the suit of landscape services are more dependent on local societal and environmental context. Policies affecting land use should better take into account landscape services.