A systematic approach for assessing spatially and temporally differentiated opportunity costs of biodiversity conservation measures in grasslands

Arbeitspapier

Biodiversity loss in Europe is caused to a large extent by agricultural intensification. To halt this loss and to support species and habitat types in agricultural areas, agri-environment schemes have been introduced in Europe to compensate farmers for (costly) conservation measures. Currently, agri-environment schemes for grassland in general consider only a few conservation measures with fixed dates and a payment for average opportunity costs, e.g. for later mowing. A systematic approach that calculates farmers' opportunity costs in relation to the timing of grassland use is still lacking. We fill this gap by developing a systematic agri-economic cost assessment approach. Our approach is general enough to be applicable on a large spatial scale but can still sensitively differentiate among different timings. Moreover it is straightforward and time-saving enough to be suitable for implementation in regional scale optimisation procedures. We demonstrate this by applying the systematic cost assessment in the decision support software DSS-Ecopay using the example of grassland species and habitats conservation in the German federal state of Saxony.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: UFZ Discussion Paper ; No. 15/2013

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft
• Subject: biodiversity conservation ; cost-effectiveness ; ecological-economic modelling ; agri-environment scheme ; grassland ; DSS-Ecopay

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Mewes, Melanie ; Drechsler, Martin ; Johst, Karin ; Sturm, Astrid ; Wätzold, Frank
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ)
• (where): Leipzig
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/85253
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET