Land Cover Changes in Western Mediterranean Areas by Integrating Data from National Censuses of Agriculture

In the last decades, Mediterranean agricultural systems have experienced significant changes in land use and agricultural practices under the pressure of the worldwide market competition, the effects of the global changes and the need to contain the environmental harms (Bajocco et al. 2012). The Mediterranean area is characterized by peculiar traits (climate, soil, orography, traditions, etc.) which are rooted in history and allow us to distinguish this agriculture to those developed in the different European regions (Debolini et al., 2018). The aim of this study is to describe and interpret the agroecosystem dynamics of Western Mediterranean areas both in terms of land-use (agricultural, urban, natural, etc.) and land-cover changes (cereals, forage, vegetables, etc.) by using the data from the agricultural censuses of France (FR), Italy (IT), Portugal (PT) and Spain (ES) over the 2000-2010 period.