Grassland conservation across European landscapes protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services with ecological networks
Abstract
Grasslands are valued not only for the provision of fodder but also as habitat for a wide array of plant and animal species and for their aesthetic and cultural value. Nevertheless, ecologically favourable grasslands are threatened in many parts of Europe. It calls for conservation measures and corresponding land use triggers to halt such degradation. These actions need to take the landscape level into account in order to be effective. The major objective is to identify best-practice and cost-effective conservation measures and their spatial arrangement, that enhance and protect the landscape and ensure long-term resilience of European grasslands against bio-physical degradation and adverse socio-economic developments. GreeNet brings together agronomists, agricultural economists, biologists, and landscape ecologists to analyse the interaction of conservation measures between fields, farms and the landscape in several European case studies. Results shall inform the scientific debate on resilient landscapes and shall support policy planners in designing effective strategies to safeguard biodiversity in European landscapes while maintaining the supply of multiple ecosystem services to local communities and the overall society. GreeNet develops, modifies, and applies a set of ecological tools (e.g. models, indicator assessments) to identify biodiversity and ecosystem service targets, analyse related conservation measures with respect to their effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services at both the field and landscape levels. The integration with results from bio-economic farm models, the application of a landscape level policy planning model, and the application of future global change scenarios allows to derive optimal strategies for maintaining or improving landscape resilience. GreeNet analyses the farming perspective by including surveys on farm level conservation decisions. Finally, GreeNet will develop best-practice conservation incentive schemes and governance strategies. This and the upscaling of results to comparable grasslands in Europe allow to inform administration and policy makers about the need for protected landscapes and incentive options across Europe. Hence, participation of stakeholders is crucial at several project steps.
keywords modelling biodiversity landscape grassland protected area
Publikationen
Project staff
Erwin Schmid
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Erwin Schmid
erwin.schmid@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-73002
Project Leader
19.12.2023 - 31.03.2026
Martin Schönhart
Dipl.-Ing. Mag. Dr. Martin Schönhart
martin.schoenhart@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-73124
Project Leader
01.04.2023 - 18.12.2023