Case study area Ľubietová and Strelníky : Agricultural abandonment and land use changes since 1949

European agricultural land is constantly changing, following different development trajectories. On the one hand, they are urbanisation trends and agricultural intensification. On the other hand, some mountain areas have faced land abandonment (Van Vliet et al. 2015). Agricultural abandonment as an opposite process of agricultural intensification (MacDonald et al. 2000). The negative effects of agricultural land abandonment may include the loss of particular biodiversity, increased spread of fires, particularly in the southern latitudes. Abandonment encourages the loss of landscape attractiveness and landscape heterogeneity, as well as its cultural heritage (Pazúr et al. 2014). Agricultural abandonment is widespread in several regions of the world (Cramer et al. 2008), including North America (Parody et al. 2001), monsoonal Asia (Fukamachi et al. 2005; Tokuoka et al. 2011; Osawa et al. 2013), northern Europe (Robinson, Sutherland 2002) and southern Europe (Ostermann 1998). These processes have a distinctive character in post-socialist countries of central and eastern Europe (Baur et al. 2006; Müller, Munroe, 2008; Kuemmerle et al. 2008; Müller et al. 2009; Kuemmerle et al. 2011; Lieskovský et al. 2014, 2015). In many post-socialist countries agricultural land abandonment began to dominate remarkably after 1989. Dismantling of the state-command system, introduction of free-market principles, withdrawal of governmental regulation and support, and land reforms caused fundamental changes in all sectors of the economy, including agricultural land use (Lerman et al. 2004; Lioubimtseva, Henebry 2008). This era was called transformation period. Agricultural cooperatives started to be transformed and the market started to be liberalised. This led to a decrease in agricultural production and often also to rural migration (Müller, Sikor 2006; Müller et al. 2009). This is a typical scenario of agricultural abandonment in post-socialist countries. According to Prishchepov et al. (2012a) the highest rates of land abandonment since 1990 were observed in Latvia (42% of all agricultural land in 1990 was abandoned by 2000), followed by Russia (31%), Lithuania (28%), Poland (14%) and Belarus (13%). But in many areas we can observe the process of agricultural abandonment earlier. This has a relationship with the process of collectivization. In Slovakia, this process occurred mainly in 1950–1970 and brought eminent changes to agricultural land use structure. Most of the traditional farming forms were transformed into large-scale fields or they were abandoned, especially because of difficult local terrain conditions (Lieskovský et al. 2014). Remaining mosaic of small-scale arable fields or permanent agricultural cultivations such as grasslands, vineyards and high-trunk orchards or early abandoned plots of low succession degree, which have not been affected by agricultural collectivization, are defined as traditional agricultural landscapes (TAL). TAL are significant as unique islands of species-rich plant and animal communities that have been part of continuous evolution over centuries (Špulerová et al. 2011; Špulerová et al. 2013). This study analyses agricultural landscape of the northern part of the Poľana UNESCO Biosphere reserve. The main aim is to create a multitemporal analysis of agricultural abandonment evolution in relation to the selected terrain attributes, spatial transformation analysis of TAL and an analysis of landscape diversity change.