Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol A holistic approach to land system dynamics – The Monfurado case in Alentejo, Portugal Catarina Esgalhado a, *, Helena Guimarães a , Marta Debolini b , Nuno Guiomar a , Sylvie Lardon c , Isabel Ferraz de Oliveira a a MED – Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, Universidade de Évora, Pólo da Mitra, Ap. 94, 7006-554, Évora, Portugal b UMR 1114 INRA-UAPV EMMAH, Domaine St Paul, Site Agroparc, 84914 Avignon cedex 9, France c INRA & AgroParisTech, UMR Territoires, Clermont-Ferrand, 9, Avenue Blaise Pascal, CS Aubière Cedex, France ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Land system dynamics Territorial approach Participatory research High nature value Mediterranean farming systems ABSTRACT Understanding land system dynamics is fundamental for policy-making from local to global scale. Land system is a combination of land use, land management and territorial practices. To attain such complete information about landscape structures is a challenging task. Aiming to deepen knowledge on land systems, we applied a metho- dology meant to achieve a broader understanding of dynamics in the Sítio de Monfurado (SM), a Natura 2000 site and holder of High Nature Value farming systems. To do so, we combined spatial analysis of land system changes with a participatory approach designated as Territory Game. While the spatial analysis shows little change in the SM land systems, the territory is perceived as fast-changing by the territorial actors (e.g., stakeholders with an explicit role in territorial development). At both scales, and in agreement with literature, we fnd trends of simplifcation and intensifcation in land systems, typically associated with the reduction of multifunctionality. The combination of both approaches contributed to the understanding of past changes, the drivers that induce such changes, how these are interpreted and, how to act upon them in the future. The proposed combined methodology can bring new useful insights for policy-makers, although scaling from local to broader scale remains a challenge. 1. Introduction Land systems can be defned as the combination of land use and territorial practices (Turner et al., 2007), where social, economic and political fows meet biophysical constraints. Land systems are dynamic, resulting from interactions of the social-ecological systems that operate across spatial and temporal scales (Verburg et al., 2013, 2015). Over the last decades, the fast pace of social, technological and economic change lead to abrupt changes in land use and land cover (Jetz et al., 2007a; Verburg et al., 2015). These changes afected the composition, function, and services provided by ecosystems (Polasky et al., 2011; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011), with consequences for human well-being (Haines-Young and Potschin, 2010; Wu, 2013). The Mediterranean Basin is characterized by poor and shallow soils, dry and hot summers with a limited availability of water, and mild wet winters (Caraveli, 2000). Nonetheless, the region has a long history of agricultural use and includes a large diversity of land use systems well adapted to its harsh conditions. Traditional Mediterranean land systems are often extensive and multifunctional (Blondel, 2006), such as silvo- pastoral and agroforestry systems, and provide several ecosystem goods and services on top of food production (Bugalho et al., 2011; Torralba et al., 2016). Some, but not exclusively, traditional Mediterranean farming systems fall under the concept of High Nature Value (HNV) farming, hosting a high diversity of habitats and species of interest (Pinto-Correia et al., 2018a). Moreover, these systems are also a type of cultural heritage, sources of traditional and quality products and rural employment (Moreno et al., 2018). These low-intensity farming sys- tems, which are usually characterized by a small need of external in- puts, continue to disappear in favor of more input needing systems, oriented to the global markets (Jepsen et al., 2015). This is leading to a detachment of farming systems from local needs, with an increased vulnerability of farmers (Cumming et al., 2014; Hamann et al., 2015), but also loss of cultural heritage (Plieninger et al., 2006), habitats, species of high conservation value and ecosystem functions (Bugalho et al., 2011). Therefore, it is urgent to enhance knowledge about the Mediterranean land systems, the changes that occurred, the drivers of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104607 Received 8 February 2019; Received in revised form 21 January 2020; Accepted 14 March 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: cesg@uevora.pt (C. Esgalhado), mhguimaraes@uevora.pt (H. Guimarães), marta.debolini@inra.fr (M. Debolini), nunogui@uevora.pt (N. Guiomar), sylvie.lardon@agroparistech.fr (S. Lardon), mifo@uevora.pt (I. Ferraz de Oliveira). Land Use Policy 95 (2020) 104607 0264-8377/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T