What is the future of abandoned agricultural lands? A systematic review of alternative trajectories in Europe

Abstract Agricultural land abandonment and its impacts on landscape features have been a, striking characteristic of many European rural areas over the last decades. Although, previous research identified drivers and environmental impacts of abandonment, few, described the post-agricultural abandonment trajectories. However, examining the, driving forces leading to different post-agricultural abandonment trajectories is key to, understand how alternative uses of these lands can be developed to address the, environmental, economic, and social challenges faced in these areas. This paper, reviews the literature of the different trajectories observed after agricultural, abandonment and the related drivers and processes. Based on the literature evidence, we proposed a novel categorisation of different abandonment trajectories, with their, drivers and landscape outcomes. In most reported cases, lands transitioned towards, semi-natural landscapes and few returned to different agricultural uses after, abandonment. The most common driving force of the landscape trajectory was the, absence of land management where secondary succession processes led to seminatural, landscapes. Quality and state of these landscapes were variable. Alternative, trajectories were essentially driven by institutional and socio-economic drivers within, biophysical constraints and opportunities for (re-)afforestation, re-farming, and multifunctional, uses of the land after abandonment. While abandoned lands can bring, opportunities to respond to biodiversity and other environmental policy goals, the, evidence across case studies suggests that adequate resources with institutional and, socio-economic incentives are required to stimulate favourable development, mitigate, potential trade-offs, and support land management.