An expert system for integrating biodiversity into agricultural life-cycle assessment

Jeanneret, Philippe; Baumgärtner, Daniel; Knuchel, Ruth Freiermuth; Koch, B.A.; Gaillard, Gérard

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.06.030

Cited by 61 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The joint analysis of environmental and financial data allows for a comprehensive evaluation of the sustainability of farm enterprises (Jan et al 2012). Biodiversity at the farm scale is addressed by means of a life cycle assessment approach (Jeanneret et al 2014). In parallel, farmland habitats and vascular plants are monitored at the landscape scale (the Swiss ALL-EMA program listed in Table 2b).…”

Section: What About Ecosystem Services?mentioning

confidence: 99%

State-of-the-art practices in farmland biodiversity monitoring for North America and Europe

Herzog

Franklin

2016

Ambio

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Policy makers and farmers need to know the status of farmland biodiversity in order to meet conservation goals and evaluate management options. Based on a review of 11 monitoring programs in Europe and North America and on related literature, we identify the design choices or attributes of a program that balance monitoring costs and usefulness for stakeholders. A useful program monitors habitats, vascular plants, and possibly faunal groups (ecosystem service providers, charismatic species) using a stratified random sample of the agricultural landscape, including marginal and intensive regions. The size of landscape samples varies with the grain of the agricultural landscape; for example, samples are smaller in Europe and larger in North America. Raw data are collected in a rolling survey, which distributes sampling over several years. Sufficient practical experience is now available to implement broad monitoring schemes on both continents. Technological developments in remote sensing, metagenomics, and social media may offer new opportunities for affordable farmland biodiversity monitoring and help to lower the overall costs of monitoring programs.

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Section: What About Ecosystem Services?mentioning

confidence: 99%

State-of-the-art practices in farmland biodiversity monitoring for North America and Europe

Herzog

Franklin

2016

Ambio

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“…Several approaches have been developed, focusing on various aspects of biodiversity at different scales. Here, we contribute to improving an expert system that considers the impact of individual farming activities on a set of biodiversity indicators [21]. This expert system was developed to include biodiversity (i.e.…”

Section: Open Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the inventory data of the expert system developed for crops [21,23], an inventory of orchard-specific practices has been established. We identified 48 main practices including a total of 219 options.…”

Section: Searchesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What evidence exists on the impact of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity indicator species groups? A systematic map protocol

et al. 2017

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Background: Biodiversity loss, due in part to intensification of agriculture, has become a global issue. In this context, fruit producers are looking for nature-friendly production methods. Their aim is to reduce intensive pesticide use and to enhance orchard management in terms of optimising habitats for beneficial organisms. However, fruit production, especially in low-stem orchards, requires several interventions over the course of the year (tillage, thinning, mowing, disking, spraying, fertilisation, etc.), each of them representing a disturbance. Surprisingly, international journals seem to contain few publications on the impact of most of these practices (except pesticides) on biodiversity in general and beneficial organisms in particular, even though the benefits of predators to control pests have been known for decades. However, an increasing number of studies have been published in the past 10 years, corroborating the importance that biodiversity has gained as a topic in life cycle assessment. In this context, an expert system that considers the impact of individual farming activities on a set of biodiversity indicators (flora of crops and grasslands, birds, mammals, amphibians, slugs and snails, spiders, carabids, butterflies, wild bees, and grasshoppers) is to be extended to practices in low-stem and high-stem orchards. We therefore intend to conduct a systematic map to assess what evidence exists on the impact of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity indicator species groups. Methods and output:By gathering this information, we aim (a) to assess the state of research on discrete indicators and/or practices, (b) to identify literature relevant for assessing production impact and habitat suitability and (c) to provide a wide-ranging overview of existing evidence and its transfer to extension services and public perception. A literature search in scientific journals, agronomy magazines and the internet will therefore be performed in English, German and French. Following article screening, included articles will be recorded and coded (per the results of a limited study quality assessment). The resulting database and maps will be presented along with descriptive statistics of the distribution and abundance of evidence across interventions and outcomes.

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“…Most of the methods belong to a multi-criteria assessment method. SALCAbd (Jeanneret et al, 2014) or in form of risk or impact scores. Whereas some models tackle in an explicit way a broad number of species, for plants (Sanderson et al, 1995) or several taxa (Butler et al, 2009), most of them focus on a few number of species or few taxa without explicit information on these.…”

Section: Biodiversity Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issues in evaluating sustainability of farming systems with indicators

Bockstaller

Feschet

Angevin³

2015

OCL

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-The growing concern about side-effects of policies focusing on economic growth or even technological innovations, as well as agriculture intensification leads more and more stakeholders to pay attention to the questions of monitoring and evaluation of agricultural practices. This step of evaluation is now essential in policy decision, in research and design of innovative solutions, in NGOs' development projects, as well as in improvement process in ISO certification. The aim of this article is to review steps in the evaluation of sustainability in agriculture, starting in a first section with the necessity to develop a conceptual indicator framework to precise evaluators' own vision of sustainability. In a second section, we address the necessity to answer preliminary questions that will guide the selection of a set of indicators or an assessment method. In a third section, after discussing the way to categorize indicators, we provide an overview of available indicators for two sustainability themes of the environmental dimension regarding respectively nitrogen management and biodiversity. In a fourth section, we highlight the diversity of evaluation methods of sustainability through six examples in France. Finally we conclude the article with a general discussion on questions that remain to address.Keywords: Multi-criteria assessment / framework / aggregation / nitrogen management / biodiversity Résumé -Choix d'un ensemble d'indicateurs pour évaluer la durabilité des pratiques agricoles. Le souci croissant au sujet des effets secondaires de politiques centrées sur la croissance économique ou des innovations technologiques mais aussi de l'intensification de l'agriculture conduit de plus en plus d'acteurs à s'intéresser à la question de l'évaluation et le suivi des pratiques agricoles. Cette étape de l'évaluation est devenue primordiale dans la décision publique, dans la recherche de solutions innovantes, dans des projets développement d'ONG ou encore dans les démarches de progrès en certification ISO. L'objectif de cet article est de passer en revue les étapes d'une démarche d'évaluation de la durabilité en agriculture, en partant de la nécessité de développer un cadre conceptuel des indicateurs afin de préciser la vision de la durabilité de l'évaluateur. Dans une seconde partie, nous mettons en évidence la nécessité de répondre à des questions préliminaires qui vont guider le choix d'un ensemble d'indicateurs et/ou d'une méthode d'évaluation. Dans une troisième, après avoir discuté de la possibilité d'établir une typologie d'indicateurs, nous présentons une vue d'ensemble des indicateurs disponibles pour deux thématiques de la dimension environnementale, la gestion de l'azote et celle de la biodiversité. Dans une quatrième, nous illustrons la diversité des méthodes d'évaluation de la durabilité en agriculture au travers de six exemples français. Enfin, nous terminons l'article par une discussion sur les questions à approfondir.

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An expert system for integrating biodiversity into agricultural life-cycle assessment

Cited by 61 publications

References 35 publications

State-of-the-art practices in farmland biodiversity monitoring for North America and Europe

State-of-the-art practices in farmland biodiversity monitoring for North America and Europe

What evidence exists on the impact of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity indicator species groups? A systematic map protocol

Issues in evaluating sustainability of farming systems with indicators

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