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2007, Batllori and Gutierrez 2008). During the recent years, the process of
land use and land cover change has become the most important driver
of landscape change across the globe (Goudie et al. 2002). Further, it is
anticipated that anthropogenic interventions and resultant land-use changes
will become increasingly dominant in the 21st century. The integrity of the
argument depends on defi ning and comparing effects at specifi c temporal
(century) and spatial (landscape) scales (Löffl er et al. 2011). The economic
globalization and population growth are likely to have far reaching impacts
on the natural ecosystems as well as on human sustainability in mountains.
In many mountain regions of the world there have been drastic changes
in land-use patterns during the last few decades. The mountain areas in
least developed countries—from Jamaica to Nepal—mountain forests are
depleted as population increases in the lowlands, forcing poorer people into
the mountains, where they are left with no option but to cultivate marginal
land for their livelihood (Löffl er et al. 2011).
Economic development often results in land-use changes with
consequent degradation of ecosystem services. These changes may lead to
environmental degradation through over-exploitation of natural resources
and resultant intensifi cations of land use on fragile slopes in densely
populated mountains of developing countries (Beniston 2000, 2003), while
the mountain regions of developed countries are expected to experience
extensifi cation and reforestation (OcCC 2007). The changes in land-use
pattern can also disrupt the circulation of sensible and latent heat, carbon-
dioxide, nutrients and pollutants in the ecosystem by altering their exchange
processes (Tasser et al. 2005). The European Alps have experienced dramatic
transformation of changes in land use and land cover over the last decades
mainly due to the abandonment of low productive and less accessible
agricultural land and the agricultural intensifi cation of high productive
and easily accessible areas (Tasser et al. 2005, Börst 2006, Giupponi et al.
2006, Tasser et al. 2005, Lambin et al. 1999). In many cases, these land-use
changes have been derived by advancement in farming technology, such as
mechanized harvesting of hay or introduction of improved breeds of grazing
cattle. In the European Alps 16% of all farmland has been abandoned during
1980 and 1990, and agricultural is now being practiced as a secondary source
of income in another 70% farms. It was observed that a minimum 20% to
a maximum of 70% farmland has been abandoned in the Alps during the
recent past (Lambin et al. 1999).
Land-use changes are now being considered as one of the major driving
forces transforming the natural landscape and affecting the ecosystem
function and dynamics. These changes in ecosystem structure and function
are causing great loss of biodiversity and disrupting biogeochemical
cycles and hydrological processes in the Alps (Borsdorf et al. 2010). In
the Himalaya, owing to constraints of terrain and climate biomass based
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