ABSTRACT
Such evolutions must cope with climate change (characterized by changing rainfall patterns and an increasing number of extreme weather events) and its consequences (changing distributions of plant and vector-borne diseases, and increased crop yield variability), more competition for land (increased competition between food and bioenergy production), and the associated increased environmental pressures (e.g., overexploitation of ground water resources, water quality degradation, and soil degradation). As a consequence, in addition to the need to increase crop production, another major agricultural challenge is the task of improving the management of natural resources, especially through the adoption of more environmental-friendly practices, such as ecological intensi¤cation or conservation agriculture. Major agricultural powers such as Europe and Brazil have launched ambitious programs, for example, the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) guidelines and the ABC Program (Brazilian Low Carbon Agriculture Program), respectively. Ÿese programs give a special role to multifunctional landscapes to establish sustainable agriculture. Landscapes must be considered a whole land use system at the heart of human-nature relationships that need to be e¶ciently managed to preserve and restore ecosystem services (DeFries and Rosenzweig, 2010), and to contribute to sustainable solutions, especially regarding food security challenges (Verburg et al., 2013). In view of these global challenges, there is an urgent need to better characterize agricultural systems at the regional and
Acronyms and Defin tions .................................................................................................................113 5.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................113 5.2 Roles of Remote Sensing in the Assessment of Agricultural Systems .............................114
