Seminar: Understanding Land-use Transitions ...

Join us at noon on Thursday, Dec. 11 in River Road 325 for the seminar "Understanding Land-use Transitions: Revealing Patterns, Drivers and Implications of Global Farmland Abandonment" with Alexander Prishchepov, associate professor from Copenhagen University.

Land-use transitions take many forms, some of which may appear negligible but can have substantial environmental and societal impacts. Among these, farmland abandonment has emerged as a particularly significant process. The world’s population continues to grow, and while further agricultural expansion contributes to increased food production, it can also lead to environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. At the same time, evidence indicates that farmland abandonment is becoming a widespread global phenomenon, driven by diverse factors with far-reaching implications for both the environment and societal well-being.

In this talk, Alexander V. Prishchepov will provide an overview of the current state of knowledge on global patterns of farmland abandonment, discuss the challenges involved in studying this process, particularly from a remote sensing perspective, and explore whether abandoned farmland could serve as a panacea for conserving global biodiversity and reducing carbon emissions. Finally, he will outline potential directions for future research.

For the Zoom link, please visit the GEOG Department Calendar (TBD).