Modelling and simulating change in reforesting mountain landscapes using a social-ecological framework

Natural reforestation of European mountain landscapes raises major environmental and societal issues. With local stakeholders in the Pyrenees National Park area (France), we studied agricultural landscape colonisation by ash (Fraxinus excelsior) to enlighten its impacts on biodiversity and other landscape functions of importance for the valley socio-economics. The study comprised an integrated assessment of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) since the 1950s, and a scenario analysis of alternative future policy. We combined knowledge and methods from landscape ecology, land change and agricultural sciences, and a set of coordinated field studies to capture interactions and feedback in the local landscape/land-use system. Our results elicited the hierarchically-nested relationships between social and ecological processes. Agricultural change played a preeminent role in the spatial and temporal patterns of LUCC. Landscape colonisation by ash at the parcel level of organisation was merely controlled by grassland management, and in fact depended on the farmer's land management at the whole-farm level. LUCC patterns at the landscape level depended to a great extent on interactions between farm household behaviours and the spatial arrangement of landholdings within the landscape mosaic. Our results stressed the need to represent the local SES function at a fine scale to adequately capture scenarios of change in landscape functions. These findings orientated our modelling choices in the building an agent-based model for LUCC simulation (SMASH - Spatialized Multi-Agent System of landscape colonization by ASH). We discuss our method and results with reference to topical issues in interdisciplinary research into the sustainability of multifunctional landscapes

L'agronomie, science du champ. Le champ, lieu d'interdisciplinarité : de l'écophysiologie aux sciences humaines

Le champ est une structure spatiale particulière de l'espace rural qui représente, pour l'agronome, un niveau privilégié d'observation et d'analyse et un lieu où sont mis à l'épreuve les concepts et les méthodes qu'il élabore. Le champ est un objet complexe qui peut être considéré de multiples points de vue. Certains de ces points de vue sur le champ sont constitutifs du domaine scientifique de l'agronomie, comme le lieu où s'élaborent les rendements ou comme le cadre des pratiques agricoles. D'autres points de vue sur le champ se refèrent à des disciplines scientifiques telles que l'écologie, la géographie, l'économie, la sociologie. Compte tenu des questions nouvelles qui sont posées à l'agronome relatives à l'aménagement, à l'environnement et au développement, celui-ci ne peut ignorer ces derniers points de vue. C'est du champ comme lieu d'interdisciplinarité pour l'agronomie dont il est question ici.Agronomy as a science of the farm field. The field, a site for interdisciplinarity: from ecophysiology to the human sciences. The field is a specific spatial structure of rural space. For agronomists it is a privileged area of observation and analysis as well as a site on which the concepts and methods which they develop are put to the test. The field is a complex object which may be viewed from numerous standpoints. Some of these standpoints are central to the scientific aspect of agronomy. Such is the case when the field is seen as the site on which crop yield is being developed (figs 1, 2) or as the setting for farming practices (fig 3 on relationships between techniques and practices). Other viewpoints on the field relate to scientific disciplines such as ecology, geography, economics, sociology. For example, the field interacts with ecological systems (fig 4); it is part of a specific landscape and an element of the regional land pattern; it also represents a pawn in local community interests. Agronomists, faced by new questions regarding land planning, the environment and development, cannot overlook these contrasting viewpoints. What is dealt with here is the field seen as a site for interdisciplinarity. An example of interdisciplinary research is given: the field is shown as the level at which various disciplinary approaches meet and interconnect

Terraced Landscapes: Land Abandonment, Soil Degradation, and Suitable Management

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