The delineated 15 BEARs portray the diversity of agricultural land systems in Europe. While Northern Europe is mostly covered by forests, the other areas are mainly covered by BEARs of different size and character. Overall, the most abundant BEARs are ‘Low-intensity grassland and fallow farmland‘ (share: 25.3 % of FECs) and ‘Western intensive cropland‘ (17.1 %). Accordingly, ‘Northern and Highland livestock farming’ (1.0 %) and ‘Mediterranean livestock farming’ (0.8 %) are least represented (Table 2).
Table 2: The 15 BEARs ranked according to the composite agricultural multi-pressure index, including their pressure-profiles, total crop yield and spatial extents.
#FEC = number of FECs; %FECs = percentage of FECs; note that pesticide pressure levels were not assigned to the livestock-related BEARs and water abstraction pressure levels were not assigned to the BEAR ‘Extensive grassland area and fallow farmland’.
BEAR |
Pressure index |
Nitrogen pressure |
Pesticide pressure |
Agricultural land use in floodplain |
Water abstraction |
Total crop yield [t km-2]1 |
#FECs |
%FECs |
Area [ha] |
Mediterranean intensive cropland |
3.5 |
low |
high |
high |
high |
60.5 |
1,267 |
4.1 |
8,631,175 |
Western intensive cropland |
3.0 |
high |
high |
medium |
very low |
78.6 |
5,227 |
17.1 |
39,888,953 |
Mediterranean large-scale permanent cropland |
3.0 |
very low |
high |
medium |
high |
51.9 |
1,958 |
6.4 |
10,299,484 |
Western intensive livestock farming |
3.0 |
high |
- |
high |
very low |
- |
2,033 |
6.6 |
12,851,906 |
Eastern intensive cropland |
2.8 |
medium |
medium |
high |
very low |
61.2 |
2,778 |
9.1 |
26,377,358 |
Mediterranean extensive cropland |
2.8 |
very low |
high |
medium |
medium |
50.8 |
1,463 |
4.8 |
7,176,737 |
Mediterranean livestock farming |
2.3 |
low |
- |
low |
medium |
- |
244 |
0.8 |
646,847 |
Western extensive cropland |
2.3 |
medium |
medium |
low |
very low |
60.0 |
1,880 |
6.1 |
8,385,316 |
Northern and Highland intensive cropland |
2.3 |
medium |
low |
medium |
very low |
55.0 |
374 |
1.2 |
2,681,189 |
Western extensive livestock farming |
3.0 |
medium |
- |
low |
very low |
- |
1,323 |
4.3 |
6,240,752 |
Eastern livestock farming |
2.0 |
low |
- |
medium |
very low |
- |
553 |
1.8 |
2,037,532 |
Eastern extensive cropland |
2.0 |
low |
low |
medium |
very low |
42.2 |
2,618 |
8.6 |
16,590,568 |
Northern and Highland extensive cropland |
1.3 |
low |
very low |
very low |
very low |
40.8 |
816 |
2.7 |
3,799,863 |
Northern and Highland livestock farming |
1.0 |
very low |
- |
very low |
very low |
- |
314 |
1 |
779,044 |
Extensive grassland area and fallow farmland |
1.0 |
very low |
very low |
very low |
- |
0.2 |
7,689 |
25.1 |
33,737,274 |
A broad range of pressure levels across the BEARs can be observed, with the ‘Mediterranean intensive cropland’ featuring overall highest pressure levels (Table 2). The BEARs in Western Europe show the highest levels of nutrient pressure, whereas the BEARs in the Mediterranean show the highest levels of pesticide and water abstraction pressure, with the latter being very low for all other BEARs. The composite multi-pressure index shows highest values for the ‘Mediterranean intensive cropland’, located in specific regions of Greece, Italy and Spain (Figure 11). The intensively farmed regions of Western Europe, including France, Germany Denmark and UK, also feature high values of the pressure index. Agricultural areas with low pressure index values are located in the Eastern as well as the Northern and Highland regions.
Figure 11: Composite agricultural pressure index classifying the average intensity of multiple pressures from agriculture on water bodies in a catchment.
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Previous comments
The results shown in this figure in certain regions are a little strange but being a composite indicator increases the difficulty of validating these results.