ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS OF LANDSCAPE CHANGE IN MOSAIC TYPE LANDSCAPE: A CASE STUDY OF VIDZEME, LATVIA

Landscape change has been extensively documented throughout rural Europe over the past decades. The dominating tendencies are intensification of agriculture and land marginalization. In territories of former USSR radical land use changes have shattered rural landscape structure throughout the 20th century, which in many cases have led to land marginalization in form of abandonment of agricultural lands and subsequent uncontrolled afforestation. This process is especially evident in mosaic type landscapes – landscapes of small intertwining structure of patches of agricultural land and forests. The paper presents the results of the study based on application of multinomial logistic regression and cross-analysis using binary logistic regression in R of important physical factors of landscape structure such as land quality, soil texture, slope, as well as land use patch size. Additionally certain human induced factors such as distance to closest paved road, cadastral plot size and availability of Single Area Payments are added for more accurate assessment of the driving forces of landscape change and possible vectors for supplementary studies. Data was gathered in intensive field surveys combined with analysis of high quality remotely sensed data. Results show strong interrelationship of several analyzed factors and thus calls for attention to further development of methodology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/aainz.2016.31