Exploring the role of land degradation on agricultural land use change dynamics

The role that land-use and socioeconomic factors exert on consolidating land degradation (LD) processes is a major research issue. However, intensity and type of the impact played by LD on such land use factors is still underexplored. The present study investigates the role of LD on land-use change (LUC) trajectories of land abandonment (LA) and urban expansion (URB) in the three geographical repartitions (North, Centre, South) of Italy between 1990 and 2012, by means of the Environmental Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA). ENFA is a multivariate approach originally introduced in the analysis of animal ecology allowing to compute habitat suitability (HS) models without requiring presence/absence data. Four environmental quality indices about climate (CQI), soil (SQI), vegetation (VQI) and land management (MQI) have been analyzed for the years 1990 and 2000 and related to the trajectories of LA and URB, respectively, for the time periods 1990–2000 and 2000–2012. Empirical results have indicated that different driving forces are linked to LA and URB, and that for each trajectory, the role of some forces may change over time. Evidence shows that soil quality and low human pressure represent the main drivers of LA. By contrast, as for URB, high human pressure represented the main driving factor throughout the country, both during 1990–2000 and 2000–2012. The HS maps show the probability arrangement of LA and URB in the three geographical repartitions. Starting from this work, further research is increasingly required to implement prediction models of future LA and URB trajectories according to the current land quality status. [Display omitted] •Land degradation (LD) directly influences land-use changes (LUCs) in time and space.•We investigated the role of LD on land abandonment (LA) and urban expansion (URB).•We used Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA) to model the LD niche of LA and URB.•LA is a complex process driven by both “pedological” and “anthropogenic” LD factors.•URB is a continuous process mainly guided by one LD factor, namely “anthropogenic”.