Agricultural landscape change and land footprint from 1970 to 2010: the case study of Sardinia, Italy

Urban population growth has triggered a process of change in rural areas and landscape patterns. This transformation has a twofold consequence. On one hand, land conversion causes loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction (Deng et al., 2017). On the other hand, higher levels of food demand, together with the reduction of available land, endanger the capability of supplying food at local level. The local food systems and food security is increasingly dependent by trade and transport costs. Local food system conservation is increasingly recognized as a key factor in the pursuit of sustainable and bio based economy perspective. Land food footprint is a significant tool in assessing food self-sufficiency, land displacement and thus food system sustainability. In this paper we adopt a landscape approach to analyse the evolution of land food footprint and landscape diversity in Sardinia over the period 1970-2010 to assess the impact of land use change and food systems evolution. Time series show a decrease in landscape diversity and greater degrees of few landscape elements dominance, agricultural specialization and land food footprint unbalance. In summary, these results show that diversified and traditional landscape have been replaced by specialised, less diverse landscape where labour-intensive crops and intensive agriculture results in environment impact and in integration of local food systems by food imports, resulting in land unbalance (land displacement), in landscape features simplification and in rural settlements abandon.