From abandonment to sustainable use: Prioritizing land consolidation with ALS-derived vegetation metrics in Małopolskie Voivodeship, southern Poland

In many parts of Europe, particularly in countries such as Spain, Poland, Italy, Portugal, and Romania, farmland abandonment is widespread as a result of changing land use and socioeconomic circumstances. A balanced strategy is needed to identify which abandoned lands should be restored for agricultural production and which should remain unused. Although earlier research has shown that land consolidation can lower the likelihood of abandonment, no studies have used local-scale data and high-resolution spatial datasets to determine whether abandoned land can be returned to production. In this study, a new approach is proposed for the regeneration of abandoned agricultural lands through land consolidation. In order to find abandoned agricultural parcels that could be restored by land consolidation, this study presents a novel methodology that combines cadastral databases with data from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS). The study was conducted in Małopolskie Voivodeship, southern Poland, with a detailed case study in Olkusz Poviat, where agricultural land abandonment is relatively high. A total of 79 villages with a combined area of 620 km² were selected as the study area. The villages are prioritized for land consolidation projects based on their potential, with a unique reward-penalty function applied based on vegetation height, prioritizing areas with the highest likelihood of reducing or reversing land abandonment. The proposed approach identifies which abandoned lands can be returned to production as part of land consolidation efforts. This study presents a new, data-driven approach to rural land management that enables targeted policy interventions, allowing planners to prioritize areas at high risk of abandonment, make informed decisions, and develop land consolidation projects that maximize sustainable land use and agricultural productivity.