Seventy-seven percent of all agricultural land is related to livestock, meat and dairy, including grazing land and arable fields used for animal feed production. The effect of livestock on the natural environment is well documented. Many types of research describe these effects on biodiversity. The surface runoff and soil erosion on grasslands and pastures are investigated with smaller intensity since grasslands are one of the two major land uses that are considered as natural or at least semi-natural lands. Still, mainly due to overuse, grazing on sloping pasture lands can cause severe soil damage, the trampling can cause compaction, compaction decrease infiltration and thus increase runoff and, consequently, soil loss. There are several consequences of the grazing pressure that cause water erosion and surface runoff above the acceptable limit, such as a dramatic decrease in grass densities and/or above-ground bio-mass, compaction, animal tracks, etc. Related research started as early as 1911 and continues until today. There are several methods to analyse the consequences of grazing pressure, e.g., in situ rainfall simulations, infiltration and soil resilience measurements, modelling of runoff, soil loss and infiltration, calculation of ecological costs, etc. Furthermore, most importantly, scientists are investigating the possibilities for improvement of the achieved unstable grazing system due to bad management. Numerous publications have been publishing results on positive changes with the removal of grazing livestock from the grasslands. However, since the socio-economic situation is changing on Earth, more people requiring the products of the pastures, an optimal grazing solution is greatly needed. One of the solutions can be the planning of the optimal animal unit per area, based on the expected grass yields. However, due to the big differences in yields, caused by the greatly unreliable weather, the solution for the future must be a multifunctional agriculture and a flexible land use.

Soil carbon storage results from interactions between ecological processes and contributes to the global chemical regulation of the atmosphere, a vital ecosystem service. Within the ecosystem services approach, measuring soil carbon stock is used as an indicator of landscapes that function as terrestrial carbon sinks and sources. Soil carbon stock models of agricultural landscapes use national carbon stock data and are used to determine environmental benchmarks and develop land-use management strategies for improved landscape-scale carbon sequestration. The InVEST Carbon Storage model has been used as a tool to map carbon stock based on these data. However, the accuracy of the national carbon inventories of Hungary is unknown. In this study, the InVEST soil carbon stock models of two agricultural landscapes in Hungary were produced based on national soil carbon stock data and in-field collected soil sample carbon stock data. Carbon stock inventories were collated and used as InVEST carbon model inputs, and the models were mapped, compared, and evaluated to determine their usefulness in the planning of maximizing soil carbon storage in sustainable land-use management and policy development. Five InVEST soil carbon stock spatial models were produced for both agricultural landscapes, which showed great variation based on the data used to develop it. Aggregate carbon stock potentially stored in the landscape-scale study areas also varied between datasets used. Integrating soil sample data along with national carbon stock data shows prospective applicability in assessing contextual landscape-scale potential soil carbon stock storage.

Landscape quality has become a fundamental issue in the development of renewable energy (henceforth abbreviated RE) projects. Rapid technological advances in RE production and distribution, coupled with changing policy frameworks, bring specific challenges during planning in order to avoid degradation of landscape quality. The current work provides a comprehensive review on RE landscapes and the impacts of RE systems on landscape for most European countries. It is based on a review by an interdisciplinary international team of experts of empirical research findings on landscape impacts of RE from thirty-seven countries that have participated in the COST Action TU1401 Renewable Energy and Landscape Quality (RELY).