The first map of dominant crop sequences in the European Union over 2012–2018

Abstract. Crop diversification is considered as an important linchpin of the agroecological transition, whereas current dominant cropping systems are known to rely only on a few crops species – like cereals in the European Union (EU). To assess the benefits of crop diversification at large scale, an accurate description of current crop sequences is required as a baseline. However, such a description is lacking at the scale of the EU. Here, we developed the first map of dominant crop sequences in the EU for the period 2012–2018. We used the LUCAS dataset that provides temporally-incomplete land cover information from a stable grid of points covering the whole EU. Eight crop sequence types were identified using hierarchical clustering implemented on LUCAS data, and mapped over EU. We show, in France, that the relative importance of these eight crop sequence types (as estimated from LUCAS data) was highly consistent with those derived from an almost spatially-exhaustive temporally-complete national dataset (the French Land Parcel Identification System) for the same period, thus validating the method and the typology for this country. Land use (i.e. crop production area) derived from our map of dominant crop sequences was also highly consistent with land use reported by official statistics, both at national and EU levels, validating the approach at the EU-scale. This first map of dominant crop sequences in the EU should be useful for future studies dealing with agricultural issues that are sensitive to crop rotations. The map of dominant crop sequences types in the EU derived from our work is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7016986 (Ballot et al., 2022).