Combined ecological and economic modelling in agricultural land use scenarios

Agricultural production and its associated land use comprise the most important key factor regarding biodiversity and environmental impact within the wider countryside in Denmark. Recently, a number of options for land use changes have been implemented in environmental actionplans, such as afforestation, restoring wetlands and protection of drinking water catchments. At the same time. growing attention is put on the potential of Geographic Information System (GIS) as spatial decision Support tools in local and regional environmental impact assessment, planning and implementation of governmental policies at local level. The work presented is part of a multidisciplinary research project, addressing the consequences of changes in agricultural production with respect to ecology, environment and economy. In this paper, focus is put upon linking vegetation ecology and farm economy. Ecological effects are assessed in terms of type, area and fragmentation of biotopes at landscape level. Assessment is based upon the output of a spatial detailed Biotope Landscape Model, describing the distribution of plant communities and nature types in Danish (semi-) natural terrestrial biotopes. In addition ail agro-economic model, assessing the costs of agricultural land use changes at the farm level, has been implemented. Input and output of the economic model has been linked to the GIS-based Biotope Landscape Model, allowing scenario definition and integrated evaluation of results, including their spatial representation. The present situation has been modelled as a base line scenario. Afterwards, three scenarios aiming at more extensive agricultural production have been selected so they reflect different ecological or economic priorities. Results show economic as well as ecological consequences, compared to the present situation. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.