Assessing Critical Transitions in Agricultural Landscapes in the Lower Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada

However, few studies have explored the spatial dynamics of agricultural land-cover change, particularly shifts between annual and perennial crop types and their effects on landscape configuration in this region. This study assessed land-cover dynamics between 2015 and 2020 using two land-cover datasets: the Annual Crop Inventory and the North American Land Change Monitoring System data.

The land-cover products were harmonized using a rule-based overlay that evaluated pairwise agreement between the datasets, generating consistent classifications across both time steps. The harmonization produced six land-cover classes: Water, Urban, Annual Agriculture, Perennial Agriculture, Forest, and Wetland. Results showed a decline in annual agriculture from 48,721 ha (12.5%) in 2015 to 18,062 ha (4.6%) in 2020, alongside an increase in perennial agriculture from 11,365 ha (2.9%) to 36,351 ha (9.3%).