Research Area 3 "Agricultural Landscape Systems"

 

What will the agricultural landscapes of the future look like?

Agricultural landscapes are subject to constant changes. The uses of the landscape interact with natural site conditions and are changed by external factors such as climate change. Our goal is to understand these complex changes with foresight and to design them in such a way that sustainable land use is possible. This means maintaining and improving agricultural productivity, biodiversity, ecosystem services and the attractiveness of landscapes as recreational areas.

The future developments of agricultural landscapes are of utmost importance for the implementation of many sustainability goals. Agricultural landscapes are the object of research in numerous scientific disciplines, each with its own specific theories and methods. The task of the "Agricultural Landscape Systems" programme area is to take a systemic approach across disciplines and scales in order to develop robust assessments of landscape use despite their complexity and to create a basis for action for farmers, political decision-makers and other users of agricultural landscapes.

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The topics of the Research Area address the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG; UN 2015), which are also addressed in the German Sustainable Development Strategy (2016): Zero Hunger (2), Clean Water and Sanitation (6), Affordable and Clean Energy (7), Responsible Consumption and Production (12), Climate Action (13), and Life on Land (15).