The environmental, socio-cultural and economic functions of Streuobst, hedgerows and riparian buffers.

In temperate agricultural land-scapes, forests as well as trees and shrubs outside forests are indispensable for maintaining the equilibrium between the landscape's productive and ecosystem regulation functions. The amount, type and arrangement of woody perennials on farmland depend mainly on the farmers' decisions. But other social groups and the authorities intervene as well, because trees have always attracted public attention.

In the twentieth century, trees have been increasingly removed from European agricultural landscapes, mainly because of agricultural mechanization, land reallocations and the increasing specialization of farming enterprises. In recent years, however, enhanced awareness of the functions of trees in agricultural landscapes has provoked efforts to conserve them.

In temperate Europe trees and shrubs in agricultural landscapes occur in a variety of systems including windbreaks, rows of timber-producing trees (e.g. poplar), trees that produce non-wood forest products such as nut-trees on agricultural lands (both croplands and grazing lands) and small blocks of natural forest retained on farmlands. This article focuses on three of the most prominent systems: Streuobst (fruit-trees scattered on agricultural land), hedgerows and riparian buffers. The article briefly describes the systems, summarizes their history and discusses their major environmental, socio-cultural and economic functions. Together, they help preserve the ecological balance of the landscape, mitigating the loss of biodiversity and the pollution of ground and surface water caused by industrialized farming methods.