Journal of Integrative Agriculture ›› 2015, Vol. 14 ›› Issue (8): 1511-1523.DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(15)61103-0

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

Characterizing historical (1992–2010) transitions between grassland and cropland in mainland France through mining land-cover survey data

 Ying Xiao, Catherine Mignolet, Jean-François Mari, Marc Benoît   

  1. 1、INRA SAD UPR 055 ASTER, 662 Avenue Louis Buffet, Mirecourt 88500, France
    2、Université de Lorraine, LORIA, UMR 7503, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy 54506, France
  • 收稿日期:2015-03-16 出版日期:2015-08-05 发布日期:2015-08-06
  • 通讯作者: Ying Xiao, Tel: +33-0-329385500, Fax: +33-0-329385519, E-mail: yingxiao0201@gmail.com
  • 作者简介:Ying Xiao, Tel: +33-0-329385500, Fax: +33-0-329385519, E-mail: yingxiao0201@gmail.com
  • 基金资助:

    The authors gratefully acknowledge the statistic center SSP (Service de la Statistique et de la Prospective) of the French Ministry of Agriculture for providing the Teruti and Teruti-Lucas land-cover dataset. We are grateful to the Department SAD of INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) and the Council of Lorraine for supporting the Ph D fellowship of the first author. The valuable comments of anonymous reviewers are also acknowledged.

Characterizing historical (1992–2010) transitions between grassland and cropland in mainland France through mining land-cover survey data

 Ying Xiao, Catherine Mignolet, Jean-François Mari, Marc Benoît   

  1. 1、INRA SAD UPR 055 ASTER, 662 Avenue Louis Buffet, Mirecourt 88500, France
    2、Université de Lorraine, LORIA, UMR 7503, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy 54506, France
  • Received:2015-03-16 Online:2015-08-05 Published:2015-08-06
  • Contact: Ying Xiao, Tel: +33-0-329385500, Fax: +33-0-329385519, E-mail: yingxiao0201@gmail.com
  • About author:Ying Xiao, Tel: +33-0-329385500, Fax: +33-0-329385519, E-mail: yingxiao0201@gmail.com
  • Supported by:

    The authors gratefully acknowledge the statistic center SSP (Service de la Statistique et de la Prospective) of the French Ministry of Agriculture for providing the Teruti and Teruti-Lucas land-cover dataset. We are grateful to the Department SAD of INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) and the Council of Lorraine for supporting the Ph D fellowship of the first author. The valuable comments of anonymous reviewers are also acknowledged.

摘要: Grassland, as one of the largest ecosystems on the earth, supports various goods and services to humanity. Historically, humans have increased agricultural output primarily by cropland expansion and agricultural intensification. The cropland area was primarily gained at the expense of grassland and forests. Apart from grassland conversion, increasing consumption of calorie- and meat-intensive diets drives the intensification of livestock systems, which is shifting steadily from grazing to feeding with crops. To cope with the environmental degradation due to agriculture, various forms of ‘green payment’ were implemented to promote the adoption of sustainable farming practices over the last two decades in the European Union. The aim of this study is to monitor the recent transitions (1992–2010) between grassland and cropland during two Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms at the French mainland scale. We proposed an innovative approach to link grassland conversion to agricultural commodities and farming systems practices. We first assessed the grassland-to-cropland conversion and further investigated the crop sequence patterns that were observed to be dominant after the conversion through mining land-cover survey data Teruti and Teruti-Lucas. We found the trends of the transitions between grassland and cropland over the two time intervals: The loss of grassland (1992–2003) and restoration or re-expansion of grassland (2006–2010) in mainland France. Our finding on the crop sequence patterns after the grassland conversion reveals two notable evolutions of agricultural production systems. These evolutions were related to the increase in the proportion of cropland in the total agricultural land use. One evolution was most likely influenced by the demand for fodder: The conversion from grazing livestock to feeding livestock. Another evolution was the conversion from livestock production to field crop production. Our results indicate that the intensification of livestock farming systems continued over the last two decades in France. We conclude that, the approach developed in this study can be considered as a generic method for monitoring the transitions between grassland and cropland and further identifying the crop sequence patterns after the grassland conversion from time-series land cover data.

关键词: conversion , crop sequence patterns , land-cover survey , agricultural land-use change

Abstract: Grassland, as one of the largest ecosystems on the earth, supports various goods and services to humanity. Historically, humans have increased agricultural output primarily by cropland expansion and agricultural intensification. The cropland area was primarily gained at the expense of grassland and forests. Apart from grassland conversion, increasing consumption of calorie- and meat-intensive diets drives the intensification of livestock systems, which is shifting steadily from grazing to feeding with crops. To cope with the environmental degradation due to agriculture, various forms of ‘green payment’ were implemented to promote the adoption of sustainable farming practices over the last two decades in the European Union. The aim of this study is to monitor the recent transitions (1992–2010) between grassland and cropland during two Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms at the French mainland scale. We proposed an innovative approach to link grassland conversion to agricultural commodities and farming systems practices. We first assessed the grassland-to-cropland conversion and further investigated the crop sequence patterns that were observed to be dominant after the conversion through mining land-cover survey data Teruti and Teruti-Lucas. We found the trends of the transitions between grassland and cropland over the two time intervals: The loss of grassland (1992–2003) and restoration or re-expansion of grassland (2006–2010) in mainland France. Our finding on the crop sequence patterns after the grassland conversion reveals two notable evolutions of agricultural production systems. These evolutions were related to the increase in the proportion of cropland in the total agricultural land use. One evolution was most likely influenced by the demand for fodder: The conversion from grazing livestock to feeding livestock. Another evolution was the conversion from livestock production to field crop production. Our results indicate that the intensification of livestock farming systems continued over the last two decades in France. We conclude that, the approach developed in this study can be considered as a generic method for monitoring the transitions between grassland and cropland and further identifying the crop sequence patterns after the grassland conversion from time-series land cover data.

Key words: conversion , crop sequence patterns , land-cover survey , agricultural land-use change