Agricultural landscapes are evolving rapidly, and embracing complexity in their design is key to tackling global challenges like food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss. With the help of data-driven modeling tools, we can better understand and guide the transformations needed to shape these landscapes for a more resilient and sustainable future.
Take a minute to visualize an agrarian landscape. What may come to mind is a patchwork of farms and other human activities and enterprises, interwoven with natural habitats relatively untouched by human influence. Farmland and natural habitats have been trading ground for centuries everywhere, each rising and falling in turn. Black and white photos of my grandmother’s village in early 20th-century Italy show cultivated fields stretching over the hills and up the mountainsides. Not anymore. Thick woodlands of oaks and beech trees took up residence on those same hills as crops and animal husbandry retreated—yet without entirely disappearing. In other regions of the country, the opposite has occurred, as agricultural specialization led to both expansion and homogenization of farming landscapes. Maybe your own memories, or those passed down through your family, carry traces of similar transformations.