Spatial Patterns of Vineyard Abandonment and Related Land Use Transitions in Beaujolais (France): A Multiscale Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Summary

Author conduct a survey to characterize drivers of land-use change over a 20-year period in the region of Beaujolais, France. A combination of economic, social and demographic forces are acting on the region, leading to vineyard abandonment in certain areas – but trends vary between locations. Authors quantified land-use change by classifying land use types using aerial photographs from different periods of time, and then related these changes to key geographic features (slope, aspect, elevation, edge connectivity etc.). These efforts were paired with interviews to determine qualitative aspects of these change processes. Key variables were identified using principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering.

Results indicate that vineyard abandonment is occurring unequally across the different regions – with a focus on Lower Ardieres, Marverand, and Merloux. Higher-quality vineyards were less likely to be abandoned, while vineyards that were remote, on steep slopes or adjacent to expanding urban areas were more likely to be abandoned. Vineyards that were removed typically reverted to grassland, rather than a woody perennial landscape, since landowners want to maintain parcels in a condition that is easy to convert back to agriculture, if the economic opportunity arises.

This is an interesting study that quantifies and characterizes the impacts of social and economic forces acting on the agricultural landscape in an important vineyard production region. The manuscript is well written, but would benefit from grammar and linguistic review. I caught many small grammatical errors, many of which I highlight below.

 

Comments/Edits

Use of the term “grub up” or “grubbing up” is incorrect. You are referring to “vineyard removal”, please modify this accordingly throughout the manuscript (some instances are cited below).

L30: Suggest authors add a concluding statement to the abstract that includes implications and significance of their findings.

L35: “extent of vineyards and wine-growing practices”

L37: Among this complex history, changes during this recent period (since the 1990s) have affected”

L42-43: In Frane, these changes have different local implications.

L45: in the spatial extent of vineyards

L48: and the threat due to abandonment and the

L50 + L87: inhab./km2

L58: and then characterize the primary factors driving abandonment. Spatial patterns are evaluated at three complementary

L66: stakeholders

L133: It is sold very soon after grape harvesting.

L137-138: (reduced pesticide use, increased adoption of organic practices)

L155: indeed affected by a complete removal of vineyards, making them

L156: To conserve biodiversity of open habitats that are

L158: incentives to owners who agreed to remove vineyards between

L192-193: Marverand, which is located to the south

Figure 4: Sentences following A, B, C and D are inconsistently capitalized or not, please make this consistent.

L253: Inspired by a case study that focused on cadasters

L272: Please explain the GIS procedure

L347: More specifically, it may have corresponded

L373: Section title should be “Lower Ardieres”

Figure 13: Replace “Grubed-up” with “Removed Vineyard”

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the two reviewers who helped to improve the manuscript. In particular, we have modified the introduction and the figures that present the field of study. We have also created new synthesis maps, showing the differences in land use. The result part has been modified, especially at the local scale, to perform a logistic regression. This allows us to support our demonstration by reasoning "all things being equal" in order to highlight the variables that influence the abandonment of the vineyard.

The manuscript has been edited by a native speaker (a certificate could be provided).

We thus hope to meet the expectations of the journal. All modifications are listed below (for minor editing changes, we have mentioned “modified”).

We used the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word.

 

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This article proposes to study the spatial patterns of vineyard abandonment in Beaujolais with regard to the observed land use and land cover changes. By proposing a multi-scale approach from the regional scale to the parcel scale, this exploration allows a good understanding of the issues and processes. Its content can be improved on several points, which I list below by section:

Title and introduction

• First, ‘land use’ and ‘land cover’ are not synonymous (see Comber A.J., 2008. Land use or land cover? and Comber A.J., Fisher P. & Wadsworth R., 2005. What is land cover?). Both are used in the text, with a much larger occurrence of ‘land use’, which indeed seems to me to be the most appropriate expression for this work. Thus, the title could be changed accordingly.
• The introduction clearly presents the spatial context and the aims of the study. However, it lacks a positioning and hypotheses clearly established from international literature on (1) drivers of vineyard (and land in general) abandonment (policy reforms, economic conditions, climate change, physical characteristics, etc.), (2) their link to land changes and (3) multi-scale approaches to land abandonment (see for example Corbelle-Rico et al., 2012, Multi-scale assessment and spatial modelling of agricultural land abandonment in a European peripheral region: Galicia (Spain), 1956–2004 and . There is a large literature on these subjects which will allow the authors to propose clear hypotheses. Although other similar works are mentioned in discussion (e.g. references 25 and 30) it is not sufficient at this stage to understand the originality of the work.

Study area

• At this stage, it is difficult to understand how the different spatial scales are organized. For example, I do not understand the location of the regional zone (Figure 2) in relation to the location of Beaujolais (Figure 1), nor the delimitation of the three sub-sites in relation to this regional scale. Even if they are named in figure 1 (written in white, it would be easier to read) and figure 2, it would be useful to visualize their extent. So, a figure (Figure 1 for example) presenting the multi-scale organization of the sites would be welcome.
• In the same vein, the three main components of the figure 3 mentioned lines 81-82 are not clearly represented on figure 1 (except for the Green Beaujolais), not facilitating the reading (we think that these 3 components are the 3 AOCs) ;
• Figure 2 : the distinction between the 3 shades of red (especially between Beaujolais village and vintages) is not distinguished enough.

Methods

• The influence of site characteristics (aspect, slope gradient and terroir quality) on abandonment is only studied at a fine scale (parcels). I imagine that it was also possible at the study site scale with the available data. Do you think that their integration at this step would be relevant to explain land use transitions?
• Section 3.1 and 4.1. The last date is 2012 in the text, but 2010 in figure 6. I imagine that it is figure 6 which is to be modified. In this part of the work, I suspect that you are using CLC. If so, mention it in 3.1.
• Figure 5 presents a common analysis and is therefore not necessary. In addition, since the results only present the synthetic transition graphs, section 3.2 can be simplified by only explaining that transition graphs between land use types are produced by crossing the multi-date data.
• Lines 299-300 : remind here which criteria meets the high quality of the terroir (AOC only? Which influence of slope and aspect?).

Results

• Figure 6 (b). According to what criteria were the municipalities selected? Because of their different representative trajectories within each of the classes? For other reasons? Specify in the text.
• Section 4.2. Given the small changes observable at this scale, I wonder if the presentation of the land cover on the three dates is appropriate: for each site, a map of changes between 1999-2007 and 2007-2017 could be more relevant (the authors may or not take consider this comment ;). However, for better clarity of the results, I highly recommend associating each transition graph with the corresponding figures 8, 9 or 10 AND using similar colors for each land use element throughout the article (it also concerns figures 1 and 12).
• Section 4.3.2. The descriptive analyzes presented in figure 13 give some elements of understanding on the influence of the sites’ characteristics, but it is not completely convincing (except for the criterion ‘AOC’). Therefore, I recommend an additional statistical analysis at the parcel scale for coupling both information on adjacency patterns and local characteristics (at least the quantitative variables of slopes and aspects) in explaining the maintained or grubed-up status (logistic regression for example).

Author Response

We would like to thank the two reviewers who helped to improve the manuscript. In particular, we have modified the introduction and the figures that present the field of study. We have also created new synthesis maps, showing the differences in land use. The result part has been modified, especially at the local scale, to perform a logistic regression. This allows us to support our demonstration by reasoning "all things being equal" in order to highlight the variables that influence the abandonment of the vineyard.

The manuscript has been edited by a native speaker (a certificate could be provided).

We thus hope to meet the expectations of the journal. All modifications are listed below (for minor editing changes, we have mentioned “modified”).

We used the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word.

 

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This new version is quite satisfactory, and the modifications offer more clarity and give more complete and explanatory results.

Only one modification is necessary in the text: line 489, you mention the "radar plots", which are no longer present in the article. Modify by "box plots" (and replace "boxplots" by "box plots" in the caption of fig. 12 to harmonize).

Author Response

We acknowledge with thanks the reviewer. Line 489, we removed "radar plots", that have been modified by "box plots". We also have written "box plots" in the caption of fig. 12 instead of "boxplots".