Modelling Individual Farm Behaviour and Landscape Appearance

We develop a farm- and plot-specific land-use model, which allows to examine the influence of changing socio-economic conditions on agricultural landscapes. The outstanding feature of our model is that we directly consider the knowledge of local farmers and agrarian experts for the specification of the farm-specific adaptation process. Furthermore, we visualise changes in landscape appearance by photo manipulation. The study takes place in three typical (Pre-) Alpine regions in Southern Germany and in Austria. In all study regions, we apply three scenarios: Status quo (the persistence of the current economic and agri-political conditions), liberalisation (the abolishment of public payments and decreasing of producer prices) and alternative (treating a specific development of particular importance in the respective region). The abandonment of land in marginal regions and the intensification and homogenisation of land use in more productive regions are the most important developments. The initially given farm structure is of fundamental importance for the future development of landscapes.