Changes and continuity of wood-pastures in the lowland landscape in Czechia

The term wood-pastures is usually applied to areas with trees or other woody vegetation, scattered through a mainly grazed grassland area, and reflects one of the oldest land use types in Europe, which plays important ecological, agricultural and socio-cultural roles. However, a rapid decline in their area due to changes in land use and a lack of tree regeneration has recently been observed all over Europe, which has led to the necessity of a deeper understanding of their behaviour in relation to different factors via a detailed analysis of the history of the changes in their distribution over space and time. Despite the recent increase in the number of related studies, information on historic patterns of wood-pastures in many European locations, such as Czechia, remains incomplete. The goal of this study is to assess the habitat continuity of current wood-pastures and to analyse the land-use/land-cover changes of historical and current wood-pastures in lowlands and warm landscapes of hills and basins of Czechia. To achieve this, nine sites covering a total area of 98.6 km² were studied in Czechia. The situation on three time horizons (1820–1840s, the early 1950s and today) was analysed. The results have shown that almost all wood-pastures from the 1st half of the 19th century have now been lost and most of the currently existing ones were formed from the 1950s till today. Most wood-pastures, which were lost by the 1950s, were turned into open habitats, such as arable lands, and the ones lost from 1950 were turned into forest. New wood-pastures are mostly formed from open habitats, often in former military areas.     

Assessing linkages between ecosystem services,land-use and well-being in an agroforestry landscape using public participation GIS

While a number of studies have applied public participation GIS (PPGIS) approaches to the spatial assessment of ecosystem services, few have considered the associations between the spatial distribution of ecosystem services and the context-specific nature of self-reported well-being. In this study, we engage the general public to identify and map a range of ecosystem services that originate in place-based, local knowledge and explore the context-dependent nature of subjective well-being. We conducted a PPGIS survey with 219 local residents in a Spanish agroforestry (dehesa) landscapes and analysed the spatial patterns of mapped ecosystem services, their relation to land cover, protected area and common land patterns. In addition, we explored the landscape values contributing to people’s well-being; and the relationships between ecosystem services in different land covers, landscape values and socio-demographic characteristics. A mosaic of landscape types (i.e., the landscape) provided more ecosystem services (especially cultural and provisioning) to people compared with the individual land system of agroforestry. However, land tenure and public access significantly guided the spatial practices and values of the people beyond the preferred landscape types. The contribution of the landscape to well-being is largely related to values based on interactions among people and the landscape, as tranquillity/relaxation and people-people interactions such as being with family and friends. We discuss the specific contribution of agroforestry landscapes to the provision of ecosystem services and human well-being. We conclude that the integration of the applied methods of social-cultural assessment on the one hand links to ecosystem services frameworks but on the other hand represents a more holistic conceptualisation of people’s benefits from landscapes.