Exploring the effects of drastic institutional and socio-economic changes on land system dynamics in Germany between 1883 and 2007.

ABSTRACT: Long-term studies of land system change can help providing insights into the relative importance of underlying drivers of change. Here, we analyze land system change in Germany for the period 1883-2007 to trace the effect of drastic socio-economic and institutional changes on land system dynamics. Germany is an especially interesting case study due to fundamentally changing economic and institutional conditions: the two World Wars, the separation into East and West Germany, the accession to the European Union, and Germany's reunification. We employed the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) framework to comprehensively study long-term land system dynamics in the context of these events. HANPP quantifies biomass harvests and land-use-related changes in ecosystem productivit

SUBMITTER: Niedertscheider M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4375829 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature