Scenarios for Agricultural Landscapes’ Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Abstract
European agricultural landscapes are undergoing profound changes, often at great environmental costs including biodiversity and ESS. No schemes are available to identify landscape specific ecological infrastructures which are needed to safeguard biodiversity and ESS, conserving the adaptability of the ecological system to changing land uses. The aim of the project is to develop a comprehensive protocol, with a focus on the agricultural system to characterise the potential of impact and conservation strategies. This includes the production perspectives and their ecological implications, and the potential obstacles to implement biodiversity and ESS conservation schemes. A coherent set of economic and ecological models will be combined to design scenarios, in close cooperation with stakeholders, integrating various spatial scales, e.g. from field to landscape. Case study areas in four European countries will represent various settings. The primary focus will be on stakeholder initiatives, especially from agriculture, which have already begun implementing biodiversity and ESS conservation schemes into the agricultural production processes. Crucial research activities, including stakeholder input, will analyse the current agricultural production and future options, including adaptations to climatic changes and agro-technological progress. The results will reveal potentials and limitations on what the agriculture can do to maintain the ecological infrastructure within a landscape. This includes various levels, from farms to policy, offering paths to the most cost efficient implementation of resilient ecological infrastructures. These model combinations, co-designed by stakeholders, constitute scientific advancements and will cover a variety of biodiversity and ESS of landscape specific importance. Most importantly, the agricultural production systems will be adequately integrated. This approach will be of political interest by identifying goals and actions on the scale of various fields of action to safeguard sustainable development of agricultural landscapes.
keywords scenarios landscape modelling biodiversity ecosystem services
Publikationen
Project staff
Martin Schönhart
Dipl.-Ing. Mag. Dr. Martin Schönhart
martin.schoenhart@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-73124
BOKU Project Leader
01.04.2019 - 31.12.2022