Spatial Characteristics of Land Use Patterns in Mugello (Central Italy) and Policy Impacts on their Environmental Outputs

Scenarios induced land use changes and their effects on abiotic and biotic indicators are analysed for a heterogeneous territory in Northern Tuscany. Results show that under a specific policy scenario the responses are highly variable within a given region depending of the landscape component considered and that scenarios induced changes result in significant modifications of land use patterns. The changes in crop spatial pattern are clearly differentiated in three groups of responses depending upon the scenario settings. The spatially explicit approach adopted proved to be necessary to properly evaluate the impacts of policy scenarios on the environmental services provided by agriculture.