Modelling spontaneous afforestation in Postojna area, Slovenia

Marginalisation of agriculture and spontaneous afforestation of abandoned land due to structural, demographic and social reasons are pressing issues in several regions of the EU and even more so in the Member State of Slovenia. Spontaneous afforestation of agricultural land is only the final and the most extreme phase of the restructuring process in agriculture. These changes have major implications for the environment and for rural development. In Slovenia, the rate of forest cover spread has been especially dramatic, making it one of the most forested countries in EU. The objective of this study was to explore possible futures of spontaneous afforestation in the Postojna region in south-western Slovenia, which is one of the regions most affected by land abandonment. This exploration was done through a scenario study based on a spatially explicit empirical model of spontaneous afforestation in relation to several physical landscape and policy relevant variables. The model was calibrated using historical data from the Postojna region. Stockbreeding intensity was used as an additional policy-relevant explanatory variable in the modelling of spontaneous afforestation.