Similar patterns, different processes: Persistence and change in path-dependent land systems

Large-scale land use changes can lead to a fundamental reorganisation of the land and corresponding socioecological regime. These regime shifts are notably hard to detect, predict or model, often arising from unprecedented changes in technology, markets or policies. In a remote rural region in Portugal, we tracked the land use history in three parishes between 1899 and 2018, capturing multiple disruptive socioeconomic and political circumstances, to assess whether a regime shift was triggered. We used a causal historical approach that included the spatio-temporal mapping of LULC changes and a socioecological event timeline to track policy changes and other important events or circumstances. We used these, and other available (historic) literature, to contextualise local information provided in oral history interviews (OHI) that revealed land managers’ decision-making during the last 70 years. We found that during the Estado Novo dictatorship, productivism-based policies had a strong influence on the observed land use intensification, yet OHI revealed that the high level of self-sufficiency agriculture made alternative trajectories unlikely if not impossible. After the 1974 revolution, recalibration took place in the form of a rural exodus and associated land reorganisation, including tenure and production systems. Overall, semi-natural areas, which usually depend on grazing or pastoralism, strongly diminished, while natural and plantation forests expanded. Arable land areas remained relatively stable across the entire study period. Our study shows that land systems that have undergone disruptive changes in the past may continue to evolve discontinuously afterwards, without causing a socioecological regime shift or breaking path dependence.