QUESSA

Quantification of ecological services for sustainable agriculture

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The project aims to identify the key semi-natural habitats (SNH), outside and within crops, providing essential ecological services (ES). Vegetation traits will be linked to potential ES provision, case studies will measure actual ES levels and inform models which will show unused opportunities and trade-offs among ES by SNH from habitat to landscape scale. This will be achieved for a range of representative cropping systems and farming intensities in regions dominated by agriculture and matched to the requirements of local and national stakeholders. Surveys will identify key SNH and existing literature will be used to link their vegetation traits to ES provision. ES provision will be measured in existing habitat types (SNH to crop) across economically important cropping systems, farming intensities and four European agro-climatic zones using simple techniques in 16 case studies. A case study is defined by a unique combination of region, crop species, and service. Each case study will concentrate on locally important cropping system and the main ES required. Pollination and pest control have been identified as main ES needed, but also soil fertility, weed control and social services will be considered. The relative socio-economic weight of the studied ecosystem services will be appraised using feedback from national experts using a semi-quantitative method. Data will parameterise spatially explicit models to determine how the vegetation composition, management, shape, area, and placement of SNH in agricultural landscapes affect the distribution of mobile-agent based ecosystem services from farm to landscape level. To investigate synergies and trade-offs in ecological services, multi-criteria analysis will be developed to combine a suite of modules in an integrative modelling framework. Outputs are designed to inform local, national and EU stakeholders on how to improve ES provision from SNH and will include a novel web-based tool.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Researchers are investigating a range of habitats next to farmland to determine their contribution to agricultural productivity and how best to exploit their services.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Semi-natural habitats next to farmland help prevent soil erosion and provide the surrounding environment with important pollinators, natural predators of insect pests and nutrients. Collectively, these contributions to agricultural productivity and environmental protection are known as ecosystem services (ESs).

A wide variety of habitats exist within agricultural landscapes, and the biodiversity that they support along with their contributions to ESs is not clear. The EU-funded http://www.quessa.eu/ (QUESSA) (Quantification of ecological services for sustainable agriculture) project aims to accurately model the ESs provided by different semi-natural habitats to inform farmers and regulators on how best to exploit them.

QUESSA is looking at traits, size and spatial patterns of vegetation in 16 habitats across different cropping systems, farming intensities and agro-climatic zones. These habitats will be used as case studies to quantify ES levels and inform models showing opportunities and drawbacks to ES provision by different habitats.

Each case study will concentrate on the main ESs required for locally important cropping systems. To this end, researchers mapped landscape compositions and developed templates for measuring aspects like the impact of pollinator and natural enemy abundance on crop yields.

To date, QUESSA has collected detailed data on vegetation composition, habitat structure for each semi-natural habitat type and the ES providers that they support. Researchers will score these habitats to make predictions about their contributions to ESs, especially pest control, pollination, soil erosion and socioeconomic benefits.

Next, they will confirm their predictions by measuring actual ES levels provided by each habitat, and will adapt their scoring system for use in modelling. These models will explore the complex interactions between type of farming system, semi-natural habitats and ES delivery across different landscape scales.

QUESSA's results will be used to develop guidelines for farmers on how best to use ESs from semi-natural habitats within and around their farms. The project will also provide its model as a web-based tool to help advisors and policymakers optimise strategies for managing semi-natural habitats.