Integrating Spatial with Qualitative Data to Monitor Land Use Intensity: Evidence from Arable Land – Animal Husbandry Systems

This chapter investigates changes in land use intensity in a crop-livestock farming system on Lemnos Island through the combination of land use/land cover (LULC) types extracted from black and white (B&W) aerial images, statistics, and qualitative data. Combining quantitative and qualitative data, different insights of land use and landscape changes are assessed. The steps are: first, the timeline of historical changes was compiled; then, remote sensing was used to assess land cover changes and conversions that represent changes in intensity, and this information was complemented by participatory mapping with local farmers. Land use trajectories revealed that extensification is the basic trend from 1960 to 2002. Intensification coexists in at the same time, as grasslands convert to crops. There is a distinct pattern between periods: extensification seems to be the main process of change from 1960 to 1980 affecting mainly the hilly uplands as more remote and marginal areas are being converted from crops to grasslands or are abandoned, whereas intensification is the main trend for the next 20 years mainly in the lowlands as modernized agriculture (irrigated fields, land aggregation, machinery use) replaces more extensive land uses and traditional landscape elements such as tree hedges. The role of complementarity is very important. Conclusively, this case study shows that in some farming systems land use intensity changes cannot be represented through simple dichotomist differentiations.