J. Muñoz-Rojas

Universidade de Évora | uevora · MED-Mediterranean Institute of Agriculture Food and the Environment

Globalization of food chains and scale increases in business models are dramatically affecting rural areas in Europe, by a simplification of land use, new urban-rural relations and reshaped social networks. While pressures on land use systems have been increasing due to the competition on commodity markets, the role of territorially embedded produc...

Context The management of Portuguese agroforestry landscapes is currently focused on specialised cork and cattle production. Sustainable landscape management is increasingly discussed as an effective option to foster the multifunctionality of these landscapes. Such management requires consideration of multiple values connected to the landscape and...

Context Olive groves are key features of Iberian Mediterranean landscapes. With the intensification of olive grove production, some negative environmental impacts on soils must be considered to achieve farm sustainability. Objectives To estimate, theoretically and empirically, soil erosion in olive groves of Alentejo (Portugal) considering differe...

Olive groves are an important crop for the Mediterranean region and the Alentejo region of Portugal. The Alentejo region, despite its dry Mediterranean climate and extensive and multi-functional farming systems, has been experiencing a rapid process of agricultural intensification. This intensification has been fostered by local, national, European...

Documento que repasa de forma detallada y en un formato visual y atractivo un amplio número de procedimientos experimentales y de muestreo destinados a la caracterización agroecológica del olivar.

Manual that reviews in detail and in a visual and attractive format a wide number of experimental and sampling procedures for the agroecological characterization of olive groves.

Interactive tool produced by the European project SUSTAINOLIVE which contains 36 information sheets on agroecological concepts applied to the olive grove, with special emphasis on the benefits obtained from the application of sustainable management practices.

Rural landscapes face multiple challenges, but they can be attractive for developing nature-based tourism. Encouraging place-based participatory governance in local communities represents a relevant transdisciplinary landscape approach. In this study, we map (1) rural and touristic challenges and (2) coping strategies in peripheral–rural municipali...

Human societies face challenges in transitioning towards low-carbon economies and sustainable management of land use and natural resources. Documenting and learning from past transitions helps policy-makers cope with such challenges. The agricultural revolution in Cantabrian Spain (ca. 7000 cal a BP) was one major adaptation of hunter-gatherers to...

Systematic literature review, based on bibliometric methods, on the linkage between sustainable farming practices and their territorial embeddedness.

Olive groves are Mediterranean socioecological systems. In Portugal (350,000 hectares of olive groves), a transition is ongoing towards intensification. Such effects may arise from the incremental use of agrochemical fertilizers. The Alentejo region, Portugal, was stratified according to the olive management systems (i.e., extensive groves managed...

ESPAÇO, LUGAR E TERRITÓRIO - São três dos conceitos mais desafiantes do pensamento social contemporâneo: seja na sua acepção material ou no domínio das representações e do simbólico, são mobilizados por áreas do conhecimento e do saber muito diversas.Este livro procura oferecer uma chave de entrada para um universo de pensamento, tão vasto e divers...

The olive moth, Prays oleae (Bernard, 1788) (Lep., Praydidae), is one of the most common insect pests affecting the olives groves of the Mediterranean basin. Current farming practices are largely oriented to optimize the effectiveness of beneficial insects, among which the common green lacewings (Neur., Chrysopidae) stand out. Two different types o...

Landscape products link to low-input practices and traditional ecological knowledge, and have multiple functions supporting human well-being and sustainability. Here we explore seven landscape products worldwide to identify these multiple functions in the context of food commodification and landscape sustainability. We show that a landscape product...

Human-triggered climate change is widely acknowledged as a salient challenge to societal sustainability and welfare. Yet, our understanding of how human social systems may react to future change scenarios remains largely incomplete. However, human societies are the result of a long history of changes and adaptations to changing climates and environ...

The Holocene is defined by the impact of agricultural societies on their natural environments and resources, a paradigmatic shift triggered by the Agricultural Revolution. In Cantabrian Spain, the adoption of a sedentary economy (ca. 7000 cal yr BP) remains misunderstood, with contemporary Mesolithic and Neolithic sites apparently random dispersed....

Practice abstract on the enemies of pests in olive groves in olive groves implementing contrasting management practices in the framework of SUSTAINOLIVE project. This file is part of a collection of Practice Abstracts devoted to awareness of olive farmers: https://sustainolive.eu/resources/?lang=en

Ficha informativa sobre los enemigos de las plagas en el olivar en olivares que aplican prácticas de manejo contrastadas en el marco del proyecto SUSTAINOLIVE. Este archivo forma parte de una colección de fichas informativas destinadas a la sensibilización de los agricultores del olivar: https://sustainolive.eu/resources/

Innovation is crucial to enhance and promote sustainability in the wine sector. It must encompass whole value-chains to become effective beyond the farm level. Interactive innovation, whereby multiple stakeholders and actor-networks interact along the value-chain, is advocated by the EU to enhance farming sustainability. The Wine Sustainability Pro...

Traditional farming landscapes in South and Central Portugal, known as montados, are affected by global socioeconomic and biophysical pressures, putting the sustainability of the systems in jeopardy. Cork oak trees (Quercus suber L.) are characteristic features of these complex agro-silvo-pastoral agroforestry systems, delivering a globally importa...

Motorways in Portugal received large scale funding after the country joined the European Union in 1986, making it an ideal case to study the effect of road accessibility on the development of lagging rural areas. We investigate the relationship between rural population change and road accessibility to the urban hierarchy between 1991 and 2011. We f...

In Iberian silvopastoral systems, the roles of farmers and land managers often differ. Using institutional economics, we examined the conditions, constraints and opportunities influencing decisions and strategies by farmers and land managers in the Portuguese montado. Findings unveiled gaps in farmers' and managers' capacity for cooperation and ali...

European rural policies are underpinned by the principles of subsidiarity, rule of law and sustainability. The current policy framework lacks coordination, coherence and integration, resulting in policy fragmentation. Silvopastoral multi-functional systems are especially vulnerable to policy fragmentation, demanding integrated planning and manageme...

Agroforestry landscapes are crucial to human wellbeing; however, they are in sharp decline across Europe. Improved understanding of the complexity of agroforestry landscapes within different biophysical, social-cultural, economic and governance contexts is essential for designing effective policy and management interventions that are more tightly a...

Olive groves are Mediterranean systems that occupy more than 2.5 M ha in Spain and 0.352 M ha in Portugal. Assuming the differences between both countries in terms of olive grove regulation and considering their multifunctionality, it is useful to implement agronomic indices to estimate their sustainability. The Soil Loss Tolerance Index (SLTI) and...

Achieving sustainable development as an inclusive societal process in rural landscapes, and sustainability in terms of functional green infrastructures for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services, are wicked challenges. Competing claims from various sectors call for evidence-based adaptive collaborative governance. Leveraging such approach...

Context Maintaining functional green infrastructures (GIs) require evidence-based knowledge about historic and current states and trends of representative land cover types. Objectives We address: (1) the long-term loss and transformation of potential natural forest vegetation; (2) the effects of site productivity on permanent forest loss and emerg...

Agroforestry and sustainable landscape management are key strategies for implementing the UN-Sustainable Development Goals across the world’s production landscapes. However, both strategies have so far been studied in isolation from each other. This editorial introduces a special feature dedicated to scrutinizing the role of agroforestry in sustain...

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) land degradation neutrality (LDN) scientific conceptual framework underscores that LDN planning and implementation should be integrated into existing planning processes and supported by an enabling policy environment. Land-use planning, which requires the integration of different polic...

The ecosystem services framework aims to encourage ecological sustainability through political economic decisions. However, it fails to capture the complexity of social-ecological interactions. This is an obstacle for coping with current grand challenges through integrative knowledge production and collaborative learning. Landscape concepts and app...

Context Place-based transdisciplinary research involves multiple academic disciplines and non-academic actors. Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platform is one concept with ~ 80 initiatives globally. Objectives As an exercise in learning through evaluation we audited (1) the siting, construction and maintenance of individual LTSER platf...

Context The governance of international natural World Heritage sites is extremely challenging. In the search for effective multilevel governance there is a need to identify the community of people which have place attachment to the areas, i.e. ‘the community of fans’ at local to international levels. Objectives Focusing on the landscape of the int...

The Mediterranean (macro-)region is characterized by its unique bio-physical, socio-political, and cultural conditions when considered at the global scale. Nonetheless, at the same time this is an extremely heterogeneous and diverse region, as is reflected in the heterogeneous and dynamic mosaic of farm and land systems developed along a long histo...

The montado is a silvo pastoral system, and the dominant land-use in the region of Alentejo (Portugal). It bears high nature, socioeconomic , and landscape values, shaping the strong cultural identity of the region. Despite these values, it has been under decay over the last decades, indicating the inefficiency of current governance strategies. In...

The Montado is a silvopastoral system and the dominant land use in Alentejo (Portugal). Its functionalities expand beyond agricultural and forestry production. It is a system where a low-density and heterogeneous tree cover is complemented with livestock grazing and fodder production, resulting in its recognition as a high-nature-value farming syst...

The existence of a "young farmer problem" in Europe has been recognized by scientists and policy-makers and is based on the widespread acknowledgement of the poor generational renewal rates in the farming sector and in particular in farmland management across the European Union. Despite existing support policy measures, young farmers (YF) face barr...

The article is a product of the COST RELY Action, it is a glossary: definitions related to renewable energy and landscape quality.

There is growing recognition that agri-food commodity markets are moving increasingly towards market-focused arrangements. In some sectors (e.g. dairy) we have already seen the development of new contracts (e.g. between farmer groups and processors) and various risk management-type strategies. Agricultural markets have always been characterised by...

Treeline areas provide a range of ecosystem services, but there are diverging views as to how and for whose benefit, these ecosystem services are managed. Applying a Q-method, we explore experts' attitudes towards forest related decision-making and governance in treeline areas to reveal the attitudinal divergences that exist and analyse patterns of...

Innovativeness of farming strategies can enhance the sustainability of European farming systems. However, this is constrained by the many requirements faced by producers to secure their financial sustainability in the shorter-term. In such context, territorial conditions, materializing mainly at the local to regional levels, influence the efficienc...

Summary Ecosystem Services aim to embed ecological goals onto political-economic decisions. However, they fail to capture the complexity in social-ecological interactions, leading to fragmented land-use decision-making and valuation. Consideration of landscape´s multiple dimensions represents a pathway forward. This symposium will discuss the adva...

The Ecosystem Services framework is widely acknowledged as a useful tool to facilitate the economic valuation of ecological resources and to support their role as key assets for territorial sustainable development. Consequently, it is a considered as an effective framework to design and implement sustainable land-use decisions. However, critiques a...

–Agriculture and food production are subjected to market and policy drivers and fluctuations that are gradually becoming global in scope. This trend turns decisions and preferences by stakeholders within local and regional farm-systems incrementally less influential. This problem directly undermines the subsidiarity principle that underpins the sus...

Achieving social equity among local stakeholders should be a key objective for ecosystem service (ES) governance in Europe’s ecologically fragile treeline areas. The ES literature tends to be biased towards distributional equity and market-based instruments when assessing social equity of ES governance. In this study, we analyze a wide range of soc...

Multi-functional land-use systems are acknowledged as highly sustainable and resilient, and play an important role in confronting global challenges such as increasing climate hazards, decreasing food security, decline in social capital and biodiversity conservation. The Montado of Central and Southern Portugal falls within such category. The Montad...

Agroforestry land uses are widely acknowledged to be complex social-ecological systems, and are strongly valued for their multi-functionality and capacity to deliver multiple ecosystem services. In the Western Iberian context, open forests dominated by various species of oaks and supporting various mixtures of agricultural, forestry and pastoral pr...

Complex, social-environmental issues can be classified as ‘wicked problems’ because they are incorrigible and hugely challenging for policy makers. Here we re-evaluate what makes problems wicked and assess various theoretical and pragmatic approaches that have been advanced to tackle them. We do so with the aim of contributing new insights to theor...

Ecosystem Services are acknowledged in science, planning and policy as a concept useful to better understand and guide the complex sets of relationships between nature and human societies, including land use. Efforts have been made to identify and describe the multiple trade-offs amongst different ecosystem services, and also the various ways in wh...

The Aichi 2020 Targets, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), aim to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2020, in order to ensure that ecosystems continue to provide essential services. Here we apply a social–ecological systems analysis to provide insight into the diverse system interactions that pose impediments to delivery of the Aichi...

Landscapes are defined as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (Council of Europe, 2000) Cultural Landscapes are defined by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention (1992) as distinct geographical areas or properties uniquely “... represent[ing] the combined work...

The policy and planning framework for land use in Scotland has undergone major changes since political devolution began in 1998. The latest reforms have set numerous objectives related to semi-natural, rural and urban landscapes, with a key role attributed to the expansion of corridors and networks. In this paper, we examine the feasibility of the...

The expansion of renewable energies is a political priority of the EU, with targets having been set for 2020 (EU Renewable Energy Directive, 2009), and then extended towards 2030 (2030 EU Energy Strategy, 2014). The Scottish Government translated these targets into its own policy framework, initially resulting in the approval of a Climate Change Ac...

Ecosystem Services are acknowledged by science (Yongmin et al, 2014), planning (Albert et al, 2014) and policy (Helming et al, 2013) as a useful concept to better understand and guide the complex relationships between societies and their environment, including land use. Efforts have been made to identify and describe the multiple trade-offs amongst...

The ELC (2000) came into force in 2004, and by 2014 has been enforced by 37 countries. It defines Landscape Management as an “action, from a perspective of sustainable development, to ensure the regular upkeep of a landscape, so as to guide and harmonise changes which are brought about by social, economic and environmental processes“. This is a com...

The European Landscape Convention came into force on the 1st March 2004, and by 2014 has been signed, ratified and enforced by 38 of the 47 parties of the Council of Europe. The goals and actions contained under the articles of the ELC represent a fundamental shift in how we interpret, regulate, and intervene in landscapes in Europe, and worldwide....

Even if the issue of cross-scale rural governance is being thoroughly discussed (Cash, et al, 2006; Cumming, et al, 2006; Termeer, et al, 2010), a directly related issue concerning the complementarities of governance instruments is arising. One main problem detected is the lack of coordination amongst such instruments that are, in fact spatially co...

Scotland is undergoing a rapid transition towards a low-carbon economy. Such transition is sustained by an ambitious political agenda that aims to significantly expand renewable energies, with actions proposed over the production and consumption components of the renewable energy system. A significant part of these efforts are directed towards the...

Research in the potential of Ecosystem Services for landscape planning and policy making is considered a key asset to devise novel pathways towards more sustainable and multi-functional landscapes (de Groot et al, 2010). This has resulted in the strong relevance of new knowledge aimed at embedding Ecosystem Services within landscape planning and po...

In Scotland, the Land Use Strategy 2011 acts as a planning-based coordination tool for the Forestry sector, setting a national target of 25% of the total area of Scotland to be under forest by 2050. This objective is contested by the part of the land owning and farming community. Furthermore, the need for habitat networks in order to deliver enviro...

Throughout modern and contemporary Spanish history, Geography (science and profession) has too frequently struggled to survive. The discipline has experienced a number of tipping points, with consequences which may adversely impact on the positive contributions it should be making to contemporary environmental, social and economic challenges. Latel...

Regional Geomorphology is defined as the scientific discipline in charge of explaining the spatial distribution of landforms at both regional and sub-regional scales, and has been traditionally considered by land use and spatial planners, as an essential scientific field when attempting to define both landscape character and dynamics. The use of la...

Regional Geomorphology is defined as the scientific study of the spatial distribution of landforms at both regional and subregional scales, and has been traditionally considered by land use planners, as the discipline capable to explain the master lines that define the character of both territory and landscape. The use of landforms and land-units t...