Land cover flows and land use intensity in the three decades of the post-communist Czechia: Changing trends and driving forces

The land system faces many pressures from the provision of biomass resources and space to the economy. The need to understand land use and cover changes and its drivers is of high importance. This work presents an innovative approach by applying a transdisciplinary approach combining the methods of spatial analysis Land Cover Flows with the methods from the concept of socio-economic metabolism, Material and Energy Flow Accounting, Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) and Final Energy Return on Investment (FEROI). Our main aim is to identify the main land use changes and land cover flows, link them to the underlying socio-economic processes and interpret them in a historical context. Our results show that the overall land use intensity is growing although the positive trends of growing grasslands and forests started after the collapse of communism. The growing intensity of agricultural production with increasing suburbanisation reversed these trends. Until the 2000s the HANPP decreased but at the end of the period increased from 55 % in 2012 to 70 % in 2018. Volumes of the extraction of agricultural biomass are growing while the area of agricultural land has decreased. FEROI grew and stabilised to around 1.0 in the last period (2012–2018) comparable to the value found in the year 2001. The suburbanisation rates peaked after the year 2000 at 250 m2/km2/yr. [Display omitted] •Czechia underwent post socialist and global transformation after 1990.•Main processes during 1990–2000 were those of decreasing land use intensity.•Around 2000 onwards the trends reversed, and land use intensity started to increase.•Suburbanisation plays a dominant role in the reduction of productive land area.•Volumes of biomass energy involved in international trade increased.