Keynote speakers

Alexander Prishchepov is a geographer whose work focuses on understanding land-use transitions through an integrative land-system science perspective. In February 2026, he will join the Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University, Denmark, as a Full Professor of Land System Science. From 2010 to 2026, he was an Associate Professor (remote sensing and modeling land-use change) in the Department of Geography at the University of Copenhagen. He earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2010 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Land Systems Group at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) in Germany. He is co-affiliated with Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany, serves on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Land Program (GLP), and co-coordinates the GLP Land Abandonment Working Group. His research spans across Europe, Asia, and other regions undergoing rapid land-use transitions.

Title of keynote: 

From agricultural expansion and forest loss to farmland contraction and forest gain: Revealing global patterns, drivers and implications of farmland abandonment

Abstract

Land-use transitions take many forms, some of which may appear negligible yet have substantial environmental and societal consequences. Among these, farmland abandonment has emerged as a particularly significant global land-use change process, reflecting societal transitions, demographic change, economic restructuring, technological development, and changes in land governance. While global population growth continues to drive agricultural expansion in some regions, often with adverse impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity, many other regions are simultaneously experiencing farmland abandonment, albeit with diverging impacts on the environment and societies. In this talk, Alexander V. Prishchepov examines global patterns and drivers of farmland abandonment, and, more generally, farmland abandonment as a uniform term, through a land-system science lens, highlighting both what we already know and what remains poorly understood. He critically revisits whether abandoned farmland should be seen as a failure of land use, a passive outcome of social change, or a potential opportunity for biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation. The talk concludes with potential research directions and a more reflexive and societally grounded research agenda that should place farmland abandonment within broader processes of social and environmental transition.