Interaction effects of multiple targeted agri-environmental payments under climate change in a mountain region

Abstract

Targeting of agri-environmental measures (AEM) is a key to increasing the cost-effectiveness of governmental support for biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services from agriculture. Existing literature, however, often focuses on single measures without considering that policies are usually bundles of different measures. Here we use a social-ecological, agent-based modelling framework to assess interaction effects of agricultural policies while accounting for climate change impacts in our analysis. The results from our case study in a mountain region show that interaction effects of the different targeted policies affect the provisioning levels of all goods and services.