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A method to identify and map the land use patterns relevant for agro-environmental policies in agricultural landscapes.
No full textThe association of natural and farmed areas is of primary importance for ecological networks in agricultural landscapes. The main goal of this work is to present a method to rapidly quantify and map the spatial configurations (SC) of the main landscape elements in farmed landscapes. Such land use patterns are relevant for agro-environmental policies since a better knowledge of main CS in landscapes is needed (Forman and Wilson, 1995; Benoit et al., 2012). Such CS can support an evaluation of the ecosystems services provided by agricultural landscapes in view of the “greening” measures of the next CAP (Lefevre et al., 2012) and locally the integration of ecological networks in planning of agricultural landscapes (Pinto-Correia et al., 2006).
The method we developed was in four steps: (1) To identify the main objectives of agro-environmental policies and of their relationship with local land uses; (2) to qualify the CS relevant for policies through field surveys, aerial photos observation, qualitative spatial representations, also in order to describe each CS by spatial indicators; (3) to test the relevance of the indicators describing CS using Pearson Chi-squared and Wilcoxon signed rank tests; (4) to map the spatial distribution of the identified CS in the analyzed agricultural landscape. We applied this method to a case study in Southern Tuscany, a Mediterranean inland hilly landscape of 1500 ha (Figure 1a).
Relevant agro-environmental policy objectives were the protection of surface water from nitrates, the protection of soil quality and the conservation of the cultural landscape diversity (Marraccini et al., 2009). With respect to these objectives, several land elements and uses (patch and linear networks) were described to have an influence on the identified objectives (Lefevre et al., 2012): agricultural land uses (arable crops 83% of the landscape surface, permanent crops 10%, fallows 2%), natural vegetation (woods, hedgerows, isolated trees), water bodies, human settlements. Starting from this preliminary information, we identified four CS in the studied area, differing for the different composition and arrangement of land uses. Arable crops (mainly winter wheat) were part of each CS, e.g. as main land use nearby rivers in CS1 or in a mosaic of human settlements and permanent crops in CS2. The description of the five CS and of the indicators identified is in Table 1. Selected indicators were proper to distinguish CS and were all statistically significant. The mapping of the CS showed a total coverage of the analyzed landscape, with some overlapping among different CS (Figure 1b shows an examples for CS1 and CS2).
The method reliability has been tested on another grassland oriented landscape in Central France showing a higher predictive value of agro-environmental services for Mediterranean landscapes characterized by an higher land use diversity (Marraccini, 2010).
References:
Benoit M., Rizzo D., Marraccini E., Moonen C., Galli M., Lardon S., Rapey H., Thenail C., Bonari E. (2012). Landscape agronomy to deal with agricultural landscapes dynamics. Landscape Ecology 27: 1385-1394.
Forman R. T. T., Wilson E. O. (1995). Land mosaic: the ecology of landscapes and regions. Cambridge University Press, 632 pp.
Lefevre M., Espinosa M., Gomez y Paloma S. (2012). The influence of the Common Agricultural Policy on agricultural landscapes. JRC Scientific and Policy reports, 79 pp.
Marraccini E. (2010). La valutazione delle funzioni agro-ambientali: un approccio agronomico – territoriale. Tesi di Perfezionamento in Scienze Agrarie, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and AgroParisTech, 339 pp. http://pastel.archives-ouvertes.fr/pastel-00589832
Marraccini E., Galli M., Rapey H., Lardon S., Bonari E. (2009). Multiple agro-environmental functions targeted by decision-makers: a compared approach in two European regions. In: Breuste J., Kozova M., Finka M. (Eds), Proceedings of the European International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) Conference, Salzburg (Austria), 167-172.
Pinto-Correia, T., Gustavsson, R., Pirnat, J. (2006). Bridging the gap between centrally defined policies and local decisions – Towards more sensitive and creative rural landscape management. Landscape Ecology 21: 333–346.
Rizzo D., Marraccini E., Lardon S., Rapey H., Debolini M., Thenail C., Benoit M. (2012). How can landscape management be enhanced by farming systems? A landscape agronomy perspective. European IFSA Symposium, 1-4 July 2012 Aarhus, Danemark, 9 pp
Spatial variability of agro-environmental functions fulfilment in a Mediterranean agricultural landscape.
No full textSpatial variability of agro-environmental functions fulfilment in a Mediterranean agricultural landscape
No full textMultiple agro-environmental functions targeted by decision-makers: a compared approach in two European regions
No full textHow the landscape agronomy framework can enhance the landscape management of farming systems?
No full text
Farming systems designing landscapes: background, methods and perspectives for landscape agronomy
No full textAgriculture faces big challenges, such as feeding a growing population and providing an increasing amount of biomass for energy production. Land is, however, a limited resource and intensification of agricultural practices is deprecated because of the negative impacts on natural resources. Effective answers should therefore be fostered by the development of smarter spatial configurations of agricultural activities. The improvement of farming systems therefore requires agronomy to interact with geography and other disciplines that deal with spatially-explicit aspects of agricultural land management. Different research approaches have supported agronomy in the development of a landscape approach and in this paper we focus on the interactions with geography fostering the enhancement of a common language about the way farming practices are observed and understood by the two disciplines. For this purpose, we compare land management units, identified in recent agronomic literature, with the aim to facilitate future synergies of landscape-oriented research about farming system design. We conclude by arguing for the enhancement of the interface between agronomy and geography and discussing some perspectives on the use of the various land management units in the design of future farming systems with a landscape approach
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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