The major objectives of this paper are: (1) to review the pros and cons of the scenarios of past anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) developed during the last ten years, (2) to discuss issues related to pollen-based reconstruction of the past land-cover and introduce a new method, REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites), to infer long-term records of past land-cover from pollen data, (3) to present a new project (LANDCLIM: LAND cover – CLIMate interactions in NW Europe during the Holocene) currently underway, and show preliminary results of REVEALS reconstructions of the regional land-cover in the Czech Republic for five selected time windows of the Holocene, and (4) to discuss the implications and future directions in climate and vegetation/land-cover modeling, and in the assessment of the effects of human-induced changes in land-cover on the regional climate through altered feedbacks. The existing ALCC scenarios show large discrepancies between them, and few cover time periods older than AD 800. When these scenarios are used to assess the impact of human land-use on climate, contrasting results are obtained. It emphasizes the need for methods such as the REVEALS model-based land-cover reconstructions. They might help to fine-tune descriptions of past land-cover and lead to a better understanding of how long-term changes in ALCC might have influenced climate. The REVEALS model is demonstrated to provide better estimates of the regional vegetation/land-cover changes than the traditional use of pollen percentages. This will achieve a robust assessment of land cover at regional- to continental-spatial scale throughout the Holocene. We present maps of REVEALS estimates for the percentage cover of 10 plant functional types (PFTs) at 200 BP and 6000 BP, and of the two open-land PFTs "grassland" and "agricultural land" at five time-windows from 6000 BP to recent time. The LANDCLIM results are expected to provide crucial data to reassess ALCC estimates for a better understanding of the land suface-atmosphere interactions.

We present quantitative reconstructions of regional vegetation cover in north‐western Europe, western Europe north of the Alps, and eastern Europe for five time windows in the Holocene [around 6k, 3k, 0.5k, 0.2k, and 0.05k calendar years before present (bp)] at a 1° × 1° spatial scale with the objective of producing vegetation descriptions suitable for climate modelling. TheREVEALSmodel was applied on 636 pollen records from lakes and bogs to reconstruct the past cover of 25 plant taxa grouped into 10 plant‐functional types and three land‐cover types [evergreen trees, summer‐green (deciduous) trees, and open land]. The model corrects for some of the biases in pollen percentages by using pollen productivity estimates and fall speeds of pollen, and by applying simple but robust models of pollen dispersal and deposition. The emerging patterns of tree migration and deforestation between 6kbpand modern time in theREVEALSestimates agree with our general understanding of the vegetation history of Europe based on pollen percentages. However, the degree of anthropogenic deforestation (i.e. cover of cultivated and grazing land) at 3k, 0.5k, and 0.2kbpis significantly higher than deduced from pollen percentages. This is also the case at 6k in some parts of Europe, in particular Britain and Ireland. Furthermore, the relationship between summer‐green and evergreen trees, and between individual tree taxa, differs significantly when expressed as pollen percentages or asREVEALSestimates of tree cover. For instance, whenPinusis dominant overPiceaas pollen percentages,Piceais dominant overPinusasREVEALSestimates. These differences play a major role in the reconstruction of European landscapes and for the study of land cover–climate interactions, biodiversity and human resources.

Publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Quantifying the effects of land use and climate on Holocene vegetation in Europe journaltitle: Quaternary Science Reviews articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.07.001 content_type: article copyright: © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved