Integrated Model Synopsis

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Recommended: The impact of agriculture on biodiversity

The paper aims to simulate how a variation in farming strategy can influence the richness of species within the area. The influence on farming is politically-driven, based on income support subsidies to farmers. The subsequent flow-on effects of these subsidies onto the surrounding biodiversity are modelled. Hence this scenario is equally socially, economically and environmentally dependent, forming the basis for the authors to determine an accurate way of integrating both environmental and socio-economic modelling. The importance of creating a predictive tool for a scenario-based approach is such that it allows decision-makers to link policy, land-use and biodiversity for a more optimal solution (Gottschalk et al. 2007).
The model proposed within this literature incorporates a socio-economic model, ProLand (prognosis of land) with the biodiversity model, GEPARD (Geographically Explicit Prediction of Animal Richness Distributions) to simulate the influence of agricultural production support on the richness of birds and carabid species in a marginal region of low intensity farming in Germany, over a 30 year period. The authors aimed to determine the long-term effect on the species as a result of two agricultural subsidies: the ‘CAP reform’ which considers direct income support to farmers and ‘Agenda 2000’ which instead considers a production and price dependent subsidy.
The use of a marginal region was used under the assumption that these regions are generally of high nature and landscape conservation value. Birds and carabids were chosen as they provide key ecosystem services and also because they are known to rapidly respond to changes in land-use intensity (Gottshalk et al. 2007). The authors quantified the changes in species ri...

... middle of paper ...

...able to evaluate land use alternatives.

Works Cited

Agarwal C., Green G. M., Grover J. M., Evans T. P., Schweik C. M. (2002) A Review and Assessment of Land-Use Change Models: Dynamics of Space, Time and Human Choice United States Department of Agriculture, General Technical Report NE-297
Fohrer N., Moller D. and Steiner N 2002 An interdisciplinary modelling approach to evaluate the effects of land use change Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 27:655-662
Gottschalk T. K., Diekotter T., Ekschmitt K., Weinmann B., Kuhlmann F., Purtauf T., Dauber J. and Wolters, V 2007 Impact of agricultural subsidies on biodiversity at the landscape level, Landscape Ecol. 22:643-656
Weber A., Fohrer N. and Moller D. 2001 Long-term land use changes in a mesoscale watershed due to socio-economic factors – effects on landscape structures and functions Ecological Modelling 140:125-140

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