Statistical analysis in R for environmental monitoring using FAO dataset

Nature protection practices and agricultural systems face sustainability challenges in mountainous countries regions with limited resources. The dynamics between agriculture and nature involves complex interactions that reflects the responses of farming systems to shifts in nature conservation policy and biophysical factors. Moreover, climate change impacts biodiversity through control of water resources and soil fertility. In Italy, mountain areas have experienced socio-economic changes in recent decades, which has affected traditional agro-forestry activities and resulted in forest expansion. This study examines the sustainability performance of farming systems and forest protection areas in Italy. Existing FAO data on 1990-2025 were used to analyse the dynamics in land use and land cover (LULC) changes in context of social-economic, climate and environmental aspects. The data analysis was performed using R language by its statistical and computing libraries such as readr, ggplot2, reshape2, tidyverse, gridExtra, stats, plotly, latticeExtra, ggpubr as the main ones. The results demonstrated trends in reforestation (increase of forest areas on 9% and shrubland on 21%), climate warming (glacier and snow retreat on 34%), urbanization (increease of artificial surfaces on 5.8 %) and intensification of agriculture activities (stable increase in cropland on 2 %), which indicates sustainable development in nature protection and social-economic activities of Italy