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Landscape agronomy: a new field for addressing agricultural landscape dynamics

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Abstract

Landscape dynamics increasingly challenge agronomists to explain how and why agricultural landscapes are designed and managed by farmers. Nevertheless, agronomy is rarely included in the wide range of disciplines involved in landscape research. In this paper, we describe how landscape agronomy can help explain the relationship between farming systems and agricultural landscape dynamics. For this, we propose a conceptual model of agricultural landscape dynamics that illustrates the specific contribution of agronomy to landscape research. This model describes the relationship between three elements: farming practices, landscape patterns and natural resources. It can stimulate agronomists to deal with research issues in agricultural landscape dynamics and enhance the interdisciplinary integration of farming systems in wider landscape research. On these premises, we discuss the main research issues that will benefit from an active involvement of agronomy, to understand, but also to assess landscape dynamics and to design relevant decision support systems.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to our colleagues who contributed their ideas and comments to earlier versions of the paper, in particular to Paolo Bàrberi, Nicola Silvestri, and Patrick Caron. We would also like to warmly thank the students and stakeholders who participated in the two winter schools on landscape agronomy in 2007 and 2009 and the teaching staff and their institutions: the former Land Lab department (now Institute of Life Sciences) of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna which financed the schools, and the Science for Action and Development (SAD) department of Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. We acknowledge the financial support of the French ANR programs COPT, BiodivAgrim, the European FP7 project RUFUS and the Rhin-Meuse Water Agency. The authors also wish to sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers from whom they received useful criticism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA, UR 055 SAD ASTER, F-88500, Mirecourt, France

    Marc Benoît & Davide Rizzo

  2. Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Istituto di scienze della vita, Land Lab, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Elisa Marraccini, Anna Camilla Moonen, Mariassunta Galli & Enrico Bonari

  3. INRA, UMR1273, UMR AgroParisTech/Inra/Irstea/VetAgroSup: Mutations des Activités, des Espaces et des Formes d’Organisation dans les Territoires Ruraux, 24 avenue des Landais, 63172, Aubière Cedex, France

    Elisa Marraccini

  4. INRA & AgroParisTech, UMR1273, UMR AgroParisTech/Inra/Irstea/VetAgroSup: Mutations des Activités, des Espaces et des Formes d’Organisation dans les Territoires Ruraux, Sciences Pour l’Action et le Développement, Centre de Clermont-Ferrand-Theix, 24 avenue des Landais, 63172, Aubière Cedex, France

    Sylvie Lardon

  5. Irstea, UMR1273, UMR AgroParisTech/Inra/Irstea/VetAgroSup Mutations des Activités, des Espaces et des Formes d’Organisation dans les Territoires Ruraux, 24 avenue des Landais, 63172, Aubière Cedex, France

    Hélène Rapey

  6. INRA, SAD-Paysage, 65, rue de Saint-Brieuc, CS 84215, 35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Claudine Thenail

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  1. Marc Benoît
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  2. Davide Rizzo
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  3. Elisa Marraccini
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  4. Anna Camilla Moonen
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Correspondence to Davide Rizzo.

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M. Benoît and D. Rizzo have equally contributed to the paper and are thus joined “lead authors”.

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Benoît, M., Rizzo, D., Marraccini, E. et al. Landscape agronomy: a new field for addressing agricultural landscape dynamics. Landscape Ecol 27, 1385–1394 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-012-9802-8

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