MAES pilot on agro-ecosystems and their services

Transcription

1 MAES pilot on agro-ecosystems and their services Maria Luisa Paracchini (EC JRC, Institute for Environment and Sustainability - Monitoring Agricultural Resources Unit) Ingeborg Fiala (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water, Wien, Austria) Fernando Santos (Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain) Burkhard Schweppe-Kraft (Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn, Germany) Jana Spulerova (Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia) Jan Verboven (VLM Regio West, Ghent, Belgium) MAES High-Level Conference Brussels 22 May 2014

2 Importance of agro-ecosystems in the EU 40% of EU28 land cover is under agricultural use

3 Agro-ecosystems encompass different ecosystem types: cropland grassland extensive intensive

4 Agro-ecosystems are crucial for biodiversity maintenance(1): 63 habitat types listed in the Habitats Directive Annex I require low-intensity agricultural management for their existence High Nature Value (HNV) farmland areas are recognised biodiversity hotspots, where farming practices support high species and habitat diversity. About 30% of agricultural land is HNV

5 Agro-ecosystems are crucial for biodiversity maintenance (2): Biodiversity is hosted to a varying degree in all agricultural landscapes. Some of this biodiversity is functional to agricultural production (e.g. for soil fertility, pollination, pest control)

6 The aim of the MAES pilot is to identify available knowledge that can be used to map agro-ecosystems, assess their condition and the services they provide.

7 MAES pilot resulting indicator table (example for regulating and mainentance services)

8 Role of agro-ecosystems in the supply of ecosystem services The MAES pilot shows that the role of agro-ecosystems in the supply of many ecosystem services is fundamental. The primary goal of agriculture is the production of food/feed/fibre/fuel. While doing so, agro-ecosystems supply provisioning, regulating and maintenance, and cultural ecosystem services. This creates a feedback loop, in fact, appropriate agricultural practices can increase the delivery of ecosystem services beneficial to humans (e.g. flood mitigation) and to agricultural production as well (e.g. by increasing functional biodiversity for pollination and pest control, maintaining soil properties, enhancing nutrient cycling, preventing soil erosion etc.). The supply of cultural ecosystem services is complex and multifaceted, since agriculture has been intertwined with the development of human culture for millennia.

9 MAES pilot on agro-ecosystems - data needs The monitoring of environmental impacts of agricultural practices has been part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for decades. CAP collected data sources may assist MAES to a large extent, in particular for what concerns provisioning ecosystem services: Farm Structure Survey (FSS) Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) Land use/cover area frame statistical survey (LUCAS) Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) Eurostat Agri-environmental indicators (AEIs) Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) and Common Context Indicators (CCI) A broader access to such datasets could facilitate the MAES process

10 MAES pilot on agro-ecosystems: lessons learnt Full overview of Indicators for ecosystem assessments under Action 5 of the Biodiversity Strategy (MAES, 2014) available Indication of the degree of data and indicators availability 33 ecosystem services were addressed (class level in CiCES table), 30% can be calculated with EU wide datasets, 50% with data and indicators which can be available at Country level, 20% need additional expertise before they can be used for mapping It is not always possible to separately map ecosystem services supplied by cropland and grassland Data on landscape features (e.g. hedgerows, buffer strips, wood patches) are relevant to the mapping of some regulating and cultural ecosystem services

11 Conclusions Results from the agro-ecosystems pilot show that relevant information for the MAES process is available in the agricultural information systems The MAES process can be used to enhance the design of Rural Development Programmes and green elements under Pillar I and to regional/collective identify synergies implementation with Green Infrastructure of Ecological Focus Areas in order to optimise benefits for farmers and biodiversity e.g spatial distribution of Ecological Focus Areas can be optimized to match pollination demand; Green Infrastructure can be enhanced through regional/collective implementation of Ecological Focus Areas

12 THANK YOU Photo credits: Chris van Swaay Jon Sullivan/PD Photos Theo van der Sluis François Chiron Maria Luisa Paracchini 12