Land Use and Water Stress as Determinants of Ecosystem Resilience: A Panel Data Analysis of Biodiversity Loss Drivers in European Countries

• Published in: Land
• Main Authors: Irina Georgescu, Mioara Băncescu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2025-09-01
• Subjects: bioclimatic ecosystem resilience index; sustainable agriculture; water resource management; biodiversity conservation policies; kernel-based regularized least squares
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/10/1946

This study evaluates the influence of land use and water stress on ecosystem resilience, using panel data for thirty-three European countries from 2007 to 2024, following the identification of a research gap in the literature on this topic. The dependent variable is the bioclimatic ecosystem resilience index (BER), and the explanatory variables are Agricultural Land Share (ALS), Forest Land Share (FLS), and the Level of Water Stress (WS). The estimated models are a fixed-effects panel regression with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors, robust to autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, and spatial dependence, and a kernel-based regularized least squares model, which offers a new, nonlinear, heterogeneous, and sensitive to local contexts perspective on ecosystem resilience. The results indicate a significant positive effect of FLS on ecosystem resilience, ALS has a mixed influence, while WS has a negative impact. Robustness checks using cluster-robust standard errors and alternative model specifications confirmed the stability and direction of the estimated coefficients. The conclusions support the promotion of forest conservation policies, sustainable water resource management, and ecosystem-friendly agriculture practices as main directions for enhancing the capacity of ecosystems to respond to human and climate pressures.