A systematic approach for assessing spatially and temporally differentiated opportunity costs of biodiversity conservation measures in grasslands
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.
Year of publication: |
2013
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Authors: | Mewes, Melanie ; Drechsler, Martin ; Johst, Karin ; Sturm, Astrid ; Wätzold, Frank |
Institutions: | Department Ökonomie, Helmholtz Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ) |
Subject: | biodiversity conservation | cost-effectiveness | ecological-economic modelling | agri-environment scheme | grassland | DSS-Ecopay |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | application/pdf |
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Series: | UFZ Discussion Papers. - ISSN 1436-140X. |
Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Notes: | Number 15/2013 |
Source: |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010980546