[SALBES] Scenarios for Agricultural Landscapes' Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Duration: 2019 – 2022

Funding: Biodiversa and Belmont Forum

Description

Agricultural landscapes cover huge areas in Europe and are supposed to be the backbone of regional biodiversity. While agricultural land use is changing constantly, the green infrastructure should keep its functionality or even be improved to deliver much needed ecosystem services. In the SALBES project, we take a close look at four agricultural landscapes in Austria, Estonia, Germany and Switzerland, where we combine the driving forces of the agricultural dynamics, ask regional stakeholders about their future visions and describe some development paths for the biological diversity. As main outcomes we aim at a novel understanding of the relations between agriculture and biodiversity protection, especially in respect to climatic changes and in economic terms. Accepting the dynamics of agricultural landscapes as inevitable, how can a “Safe operating space“ for the development be defined? We integrate three central components into the scientific process: The green landscape infrastructure, adaptive management schemes, and multi-actor approaches.

Contact

Thomas Wrbka

Florian Danzinger