Assessment of spatial variability of multiple ecosystem services in grasslands of different intensities

Abstract

Grasslands provide multiple Ecosystem Services (ES) such as forage provision, carbon sequestration or habitat provision. Knowledge about the trade-offs between these ES is of great importance for grassland management. Yet, the outcome of different management strategies on ES provision is highly uncertain due to spatial variability. We aim to characterize the provision (level and spatial variability) of grassland ES under various management strategies. To do so, we combine empirical data for multiple ES with spatially explicit census data on land use intensities. We analyzed the variations of five ES (forage provision, climate regulation, pollination, biodiversity conservation and outdoor recreation) using data from biodiversity fieldwork, experimental plots for carbon as well as social network data from Flickr. These data were used to calculate the distribution of modelled individual and multiple ES values from different grassland management types in a Swiss case study region using spatial explicit information for 17,383 grassland parcels. Our results show that (1) management regime and intensity levels play an important role in ES provision but their impact depends on the ES. In general, extensive management, especially in pastures, favors all ES but forage provision, whereas intensive management favors only forage provision and outdoor recreation; (2) ES potential provision varies between parcels under the same management due to the influence of environmental drivers, related to topography and landscape structure; (3) there is a trade-offs between forage provision and other ES at the cantonal level but a synergy between forage provision and biodiversity conservation within the grassland categories, due to the negative impact of elevation on both ES. Information about multiple ES provision is key to support effective agri-environmental measures and information about the spatial variability can prevent uncertain outputs of decision-making processes.

Measuring ecosystem multifunctionality across scales

“…Our findings clearly point in this direction and confirm the results of numerous local studies (e.g. Allan et al 2015, Queiroz et al 2015, Rodríguez-Loinaz et al 2015, Balzan et al 2018, Le Clec'h et al 2019. However, in order to avoid scale mismatches (defined as problems that occur when the scale of environmental variation and the scale of use or management of ecosystem services are not aligned; Raudsepp-Hearne and Peterson 2016) and to design policies at the right scale, we need to better understand (i) the varying capacities of landscapes to supply certain services (as well as inherent limits to multifunctionality) and (ii) the varying importance of ecosystem services for different areas and scales (as explained above).…”

“…water abstraction, see BE255). Our results further clearly confirmed the findings of local-scale studies (Allan et al 2015, Queiroz et al 2015, Rodríguez-Loinaz et al 2015, Balzan et al 2018, Le Clec'h et al 2019 that lowintensity management systems support higher ecosystem multifunctionality, also on the continental scale. Regions of high land use intensity are often managed to maximize a specific set of ecosystem services only.…”

“…urbanization, rewilding). Small-scale case studies have shown the importance of certain driving factors, such as land management intensity (Allan et al 2015, Balzan et al 2018, Le Clec'h et al 2019 or population density (Queiroz et al 2015, Rodríguez-Loinaz et al 2015. However, larger scale assessments of drivers are mostly missing (but see Dittrich et al 2017, Mouchet et al 2017.…”

Comparison of Spectral Reflectance-Based Smart Farming Tools and a Conventional Approach to Determine Herbage Mass and Grass Quality on Farm

“…Moreover, the range of pedoclimatic conditions, topographies, and expositions under which grasslands are used for forage production is vast. Correspondingly, the spatial variability of grassland yield is very large [8]. As it is time-consuming to accurately measure herbage growth or grassland yields, farmers usually settle for a rough estimation.…”

Assessing the impact of grassland management on landscape multifunctionality

“…Habitat conversion and land-use intensification are driving biodiversity loss and changes to ecosystem service supply across the world (IPBES 2019). While high land-use intensity promotes a small number of ecosystem services related to food production, it is often detrimental to biodiversity conservation (Anderson et al, 2009;Bennett et al, 2009;Lavorel et al, 2011;Raudsepp-Hearne et al, 2010) and other regulating or cultural ecosystem services that depend on biodiversity for their delivery (Allan et al, 2015;Cardinale et al, 2012;Clec'h et al, 2019;Foley, 2005;Triviño et al, 2017). Such contrasting responses of different ecosystem services to ecosystem drivers often make it impossible to achieve high levels of all desired services (i.e.…”