Background: Natural capital and land use systems are subjected by diverse disturbances and stressors. Although manifold scientific indicators are available for an ecological and socio-economic evaluation of land-use impacts, most of these used are still discipline- and sector-oriented. Examples for it are using soil chemical parameter exclusively for the productivity of sites without considering water quality or soil biodiversity indicators as sustainability criteria for land use too, or evaluating land use impacts restricted on a single field or site, whereas an interdisciplinary and spatial assessment would be necessary to integrate also the diverse impacts on a small or medium scaled landscape or regional level. Due to the complexity of factors to be involved for an integrative assessment of land use, appropriate tools for evaluation, planning, commercial and political decisions are still lacking. Thus science-based methodologies and assessment approaches are necessary for end-users like farmers or forest managers, planners and decision makers.
Goal: Elaborate end-user friendly tools for an integrated assessment of agricultural and forest land use.
Rationale from the themes: Demand: Although research and monitoring networks provided comprehensive data on land use potentials and vulnerabilities in the past, the actual knowledge about rural landscapes still remains rather fragmented. Furthermore, available information on land use intensity and changes thereof, like agricultural intensification, is weak. Existing databases on different levels need to be augmented and existing information to be updated and harmonized. A clear structured set of indicators and agreed upon scales for analyses are needed to unify the assessment of biodiversity. Research demand exists for the availability of integrated and harmonized information about soil and land conditions to provide manageable data for assessment, decisions on land use changes and appropriate protection of natural capital on area-based, spatial information.
Natural Capital: Biodiversity is essential for the stability and resilience of ecosystems. This is particularly important with regard to land use changes and/or intensification or for climate change and extreme events which makes ecosystems vulnerable and put ecosystem service provision at risk. The carrying capacity of ecosystems is linked to their diversity important for the organisms, the genes and the ecosystems itself and their measurable functions. However, relationships between ecosystems, their functions and derived services are often extremely complex. Although there are numerous data on organism groups available, key indicators specific for land use types or climatic regions are rare. Thus integrated ecological indicators are needed for contributing to a better understanding of the relationship between ecological status of an ecosystem and the sustainable provision of ecosystem services.
Land Management: Decisions on type and intensity of land use following the objectives of sustainability crucially depend on integrated, region-specific and on easy accessible indicators. However, an integrated analysis and evaluation of land use and land use transition is hampered either by various existing definitions or missing accepted status of scientific knowledge, and not openly available sources of information. This is resulting in a deficiency in the quality and comparability of site analyses, evaluations of land use transition and the development trends that can be expected in the future. This is especially true of the goal set in the global sustainability strategy of a “land degradation neutral world” which requires further concrete and measureable indicators.
Net Impact: Integrated impact assessment approaches are a prerequisite for medium and long-term decisions of land owners, planners, public administrations and decision makers. Integrated approaches depend on meaningful and easy accessible data sets and harmonization across different geographical and temporal scales as well as governance levels. Elaborating integrated ecological key parameters (reflecting properties of ecosystems and representative land use types) and connecting them with socio-economic indicators and political goals like SDG´s might contribute to farm-based decisions, supporting the analysis of the net impact of governance settings, regulation and policies and to a further development of risk assessment methods.
So what? Currently administrations, decision makers and different scientific disciplines work on assessment methodologies in parallel. As a rule, assessment approaches are based on segregated procedures (with focus on ecological, economic, social or planning aspects), and lacking on a spatial and cross-disciplinary indication. Thus research is necessary to bridge disciplinary sectors and to develop (regional or land use type specific) methodologies for an integrated assessment manageable and implementable for end-users. Integrated tools aiming on the needs of land users, planners, landscape ecologists and decision makers have to be developed by an intensive participation of these end-users. Research should consider the current state of the art of sectoral and disciplinary methods and criteria and existing best-practice approaches on the one hand, and manageable tools and algorithms (in the sense of summary indicators) specific to agricultural or forest land use types or climatic regions (e.g. Nordic, Mediterranean) integrating also societal demands and the socio-cultural background of regions on the other.
Links to other fields: Main gap is elaborating integrated ecological indicators (key) bridging to / with socio-economic and planning instruments and tools.