Land transformation changes people´s values of ecosystem services in Las Vegas agrarian landscapes of Madrid Spain

Agrarian landscapes play a vital role in securing ecosystem services to people. These environments in central rural Spain are threatened by urban and industrial expansion, as expansion has and continues to cause the exile of young people to cities and rural abandonment. Land transformation in these environments not only alters the diversity of the services the ecosystems provide to people but may also change the values people hold on these landscapes. Incorporating people´s perceptions regarding trade-offs and synergies associated with land transformation is thus key for designing land use policies that mitigate these impacts. The general objective of this research is to explore whether the values that people attribute to land use and ecosystem service changes can inform land-related decision-making. To do so, we first 1) characterized and mapped major land use change trajectories that occurred for the 1990–2018 period, 2) assessed social perceptions regarding the impacts of land use change trajectories on ecosystem services, 3)explored the vulnerability level of ecosystem services, and 4) assessed the social importance of ecosystem services for the wellbeing of locals. From the results, we identified three major land use change trajectories, including agricultural abandonment, aggregate industry and agricultural intensification. The results identified that agricultural abandonment is generally perceived to negatively impact food from agriculture, soil fertility, and maintenance of the gene pool through local varieties. We also found that agricultural intensification is recognized as negatively impacting the gene pool through local varieties and soil fertility. Our findings indicate the need to study the impacts of land use changes beyond biophysical changes, and link them to changes in people´s values. We finally argue that this research will be crucial for identifying socially resilient pathways of European agricultural landscapes.