Spatial scale-dependent policy planning for land management in southern Europe

This study outlines an original tool for rural policy planning in southern Europe. This new tool is a process-based, scale-dependent, rural policy-making approach, which is designed to address increasing land degradation problems in southern Europe. Seven important processes are identified (land abandonment, devegetation, intensification in agriculture, global climate change, accelerated soil erosion, increasing water demands, urbanisation) and plotted on a space-time diagram, which clearly shows the spatial and temporal scales for which these processes are significant for landscape change in southern Europe. Conclusions are derived concerning, in particular, sustainable (optimal) rural policy-making for southern Europe's problematic land management. An optimal spatial-temporal scale for land management in southern Europe may range spatially from the ''farm'' (0.5 km(2)) to ''sub-provincial'' level (450 km(2)) and temporally from 7 to 30 years. The study delineates methods and results derivable from such a new policy-planning approach and suggests the usefulness of combining this approach with ecological land classification at the landscape level.