Linking places and processes for sustainability: Social-ecological dynamics and value chains of Mediterranean landscape products

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Tobias Plieninger
• Subject Area: Ecology of Land Use
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 426675955

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Mediterranean farming landscapes, characterized by rich biological and food diversity, face significant sustainability challenges such as agricultural intensification and land abandonment. Landscape products offer an opportunity to mitigate some of the negative impacts of these dynamics and promote sustainable landscape management. In this context, LAND- SCAPE_CHAINS identified leverage points within landscape product value chains, addressing social and ecological trade-offs across different scales and stakeholders. Firstly, we assessed the ecosystem services trade-offs around landscape products and their associated landscapes (WP1-3). Secondly, we analysed how value of landscape products is captured in multifunctional landscapes (WP4-6). Thirdly, we synthesized the key leverage points in landscape management and in the value chains of landscape products that can support a transition toward sustainability (WP7-8). Our project established an interdisciplinary research agenda at the interface of landscapes and food systems as a critical link between distant places and processes as well as between different influencing factors of food and landscape quality, farming, forestry, ecosystem management, and socio-economic change. LAND-SCAPE_CHAINS showcased its findings in 17 published studies and numerous other and forthcoming publications; moreover, it substantially advanced the academic careers of seven early career researchers.

Publications

• Agroforestry for sustainable landscape management. Sustainability Science, 15(5), 1255-1266.
  Plieninger, Tobias; Muñoz-Rojas, José; Buck, Louise E. & Scherr, Sara J.
  
• Exploring land-use histories of tree-crop landscapes: a cross-site comparison in the Mediterranean Basin. Sustainability Science, 15(5), 1267-1283.
  Wolpert, Franziska; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Labelling in Mediterranean agroforestry landscapes: a Delphi study on relevant sustainability indicators. Sustainability Science, 15(5), 1369-1382.
  Flinzberger, Lukas; Zinngrebe, Yves & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Linking food systems and landscape sustainability in the Mediterranean region. Landscape Ecology, 36(8), 2259-2275.
  García-Martín, María; Torralba, Mario; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Kahl, Johannes & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Dehesas as high nature value farming systems: a social-ecological synthesis of drivers, pressures, state, impacts, and responses. Ecology and Society, 26(3).
  Plieninger, Tobias; Flinzberger, Lukas; Hetman, Maria; Horstmannshoff, Imke; Reinhard-Kolempas, Marilena; Topp, Emmeline; Moreno, Gerardo & Huntsinger, Lynn
  
• Landscapes of high value — Changing dynamics of agroforestry on the Iberian Peninsula.
  Horstmannshoff, I.
  
• Linking Cork to Cork Oak Landscapes: Mapping the Value Chain of Cork Production in Portugal. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5.
  Sørensen, Irene Holm; Torralba, Mario; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Muñoz-Rojas, José & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Biocultural conservation systems in the Mediterranean region: the role of values, rules, and knowledge. Sustainability Science, 18(2), 823-838.
  Plieninger, Tobias; Abunnasr, Yaser; D.’Ambrosio, Ugo; Guo, Tianyu; Kizos, Thanasis; Kmoch, Laura; Topp, Emmeline & Varela, Elsa
  
• Collaborative agroforestry for fire resistant landscapes in mountainous Western Spain.
  Wolpert, F.
  
• Collaborative agroforestry to mitigate wildfires in Extremadura, Spain: land manager motivations and perceptions of outcomes, benefits, and policy needs. Agroforestry Systems, 96(8), 1135-1149.
  Wolpert, Franziska; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Pulido, Fernando; Huntsinger, Lynn & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Effects of land abandonment on nature contributions to people and good quality of life components in the Mediterranean region: A review. Land Use Policy, 116, 106053.
  Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Buerkert, Andreas & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Exploring land abandonment effects in the Mediterranean Basin.
  Quintas-Soriano, Q.
  
• Landscape products for sustainable agricultural landscapes. Nature Food, 3(10), 814-821.
  García-Martín, María; Huntsinger, Lynn; Ibarrola-Rivas, María José; Penker, Marianne; D.’Ambrosio, Ugo; Dimopoulos, Thymios; Fernández-Giménez, María E.; Kizos, Thanasis; Muñoz-Rojas, José; Saito, Osamu; Zimmerer, Karl S.; Abson, David J.; Liu, Jianguo; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Sørensen, Irene Holm; Verburg, Peter H. & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) as flagships of cultural landscapes.
  Flinzberger L.
  
• Saving Portugal’s cork oak forests through dialogue.
  Sørensen, I. H.
  
• “It keeps eating at you, little by little”: a photo essay on drought experiences across Morocco's agro-pastoral landscapes. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 31(5), 581-591.
  Kmoch, Laura Marlene; Bou-lahriss, Aimad; Øhlers, Malte Peter; Plieninger, Tobias; Topp, Emmeline & Torralba, Mario
  
• A critical assessment of conservation agriculture among smallholders in the Mediterranean region: adoption pathways inspired by agroecological principles. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 43(6).
  Cicek, Harun; Topp, Emmeline; Plieninger, Tobias; Blanco-Moreno, José M.; Gultekin, Irfan; Mohamed, Hatem Cheikh & El, Gharras Oussama
  
• Changing landscapes and cultural keystone species in Morocco’s High Atlas. Medium Blog: People – Nature – Landscapes.
  Kmoch L.
  
• Community, pastoralism, landscape: Eliciting values and human-nature connectedness of forest-related people. Landscape and Urban Planning, 233, 104706.
  Plieninger, Tobias; Shamohamadi, Shahin; García-Martín, María; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Shakeri, Zahed & Valipour, Ahmad
  
• Disentangling the practice of landscape approaches: a Q-method analysis on experiences in socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes. Sustainability Science, 18(4), 1893-1906.
  Torralba, Mario; Nishi, Maiko; Cebrián-Piqueras, Miguel A.; Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; García-Martín, María & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Embedding plural values in value chains to enhance sustainability in the management of cork oak landscapes. Landscape Ecology, 38(12), 3569-3587.
  Sørensen, Irene Holm; Torralba, Mario; Muñoz-Rojas, José; Kristensen, Lone Søderkvist & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Implications of rural abandonment for biocultural landscapes.
  Quintas C.
  
• Narratives of land abandonment in a biocultural landscape of Spain. Regional Environmental Change, 23(4).
  Quintas-Soriano, Cristina; Torralba, Mario; García-Martín, María & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• What are landscape approaches and how are they applied?
  Torralba M.
  
• Drought threatens agroforestry landscapes and dryland livelihoods in a North African hotspot of environmental change. Landscape and Urban Planning, 245, 105022.
  Kmoch, Laura; Bou-Lahriss, Aimad & Plieninger, Tobias
  
• Is the ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ an indicator for sustainable landscape management? Insights from pasture-based animal husbandry in five EU countries. Journal of Land Use Science, 19(1), 59-77.
  Flinzberger, Lukas; Plieninger, Tobias; Bugalho, Miguel Nuno & Zinngrebe, Yves