Aspects of traditional agricultural landscapes: potential alternative development paths for sustainable agriculture—A review
Anca Georgiana Vasilescu, Alin Pleșoianu, Ileana Pătru-Stupariu
Abstract
In the context of climate change, the decline in biodiversity and current socio-economic trends, which support the processes of industrialization or abandonment of agricultural land, have generated numerous concepts and trends to encourage sustainable agriculture and a better connection between agricultural activities and nature. Concepts such as traditional agricultural landscapes (TALs), high nature value farmlands (HNV farmlands), organic farming, and agricultural heritage systems are associated with the maintenance or sustainable development of ecological agricultural systems, with an emphasis on providing ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, and heritage protection. This study aimed to review the concept associated with traditional agricultural landscapes and identify the evolution and trends in research on traditional agricultural landscapes. We hypothesize that our findings will advance our understanding of potential alternative methods of sustainable agricultural development associated with traditional agricultural landscapes. We analyzed articles published in international journals, linked to the Web of Science database, related to traditional agricultural landscapes between 1992 and 2021 (n = 230). Keyword analysis was used to identify trends and developments in traditional agricultural landscape research. We chose a non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis (NMDS) because we intended to examine how the relationships between different concepts are established. Our results illustrate the most common research topics related to traditional agricultural landscapes and alternative development pathways associated with sustainable agriculture. The terms used are promoted by the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, which contains articles addressing the top topics of interest and relevance to the research topic of this paper. The NMDS analysis captures the complexity of the topic addressed through the resulting areas of intersection. Our findings suggest that several topics of current interest are addressed in the research on traditional agricultural landscapes. The interest of the scientific community in traditional agricultural landscape research shows a growing trend. The adaptation of traditional agriculture to the current context is a particularly important subject to be addressed in future research.