Rapid land use change after socio-economic disturbances: the collapse of the Soviet Union versus Chernobyl

Land use change is a principal force and inherent element of global environmental change, biodiversity, natural ecosystems, and their services. However, our ability to future land use change is severely limited by a lack of understanding of how socio-economic disturbances (e. g. , wars, revolutions, policy changes, and economic) affect land use. Here we explored to what extent socio-economic disturbances can land use systems onto a different trajectory, and whether this can result in intensive land use. Our results show that the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991 caused a major reorganization in land use systems. The effects of this -economic disturbance were at least as drastic as those of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl region in 1986. While the magnitudes of land abandonment were in Ukraine and Belarus in the case of the nuclear disaster (28% and 36% of farmed land, respectively), the rates of land abandonment after the of the Soviet Union in Ukraine were twice as high as those in Belarus. This that national policies and institutions play an important role in mediating of socio-economic disturbances. The socio-economic disturbance that we caused major hardship for local populations, yet also presents opportunities conservation, as natural ecosystems are recovering on large areas of former. Our results illustrate the potential of socio-economic disturbances to revert use intensification and the important role institutions and policies play in land use systems’ resilience against such socio-economic disturbances.