New study on land use published

How agricultural land is used in Germany depends primarily on how much water is available. Soil texture, terrain, and temperature play hardly any role in this — even historically. This is shown by a recent study by the Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture.

The researchers analyzed data from the German Agricultural Soil Inventory for 3,104 sites and supplemented it with information on land use over the past roughly 100 years. They then compared this data with site characteristics such as topography, soil texture, groundwater, precipitation, and temperature. In this way, they determined which factors have had a significant influence on land use to date.

They found land use to be determined almost exclusively by hydrological characteristics such as precipitation and groundwater depth. Soil texture, temperature, and terrain characteristics, on the other hand, have little influence on agricultural use at the scale of Germany.

In addition, the study provides figures to support previous assumptions for the first time representatively for Germany:

• Drier locations, such as those with low precipitation and low groundwater levels, have been used primarily as farmland for around 100 years.
• Wetter locations, such as those with high precipitation or near rivers, have mostly been used as grassland for around 100 years.
• If the hydrology of a location was unsuitable for its previous use, it is highly likely that this changed over the years.

These new results highlight how strongly agriculture, even historically, is shaped by water availability. The findings can also inform future land‑use decisions.

https://doi.org/10.1002/jpln.70055