Solen Le Clech'


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Le Clech'

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Solen

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0000-0001-7886-2899

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Publications 1 - 2 of 2
  • Organic farming is more related to topography than to soil characteristics in extensively and intensively managed grasslands in Switzerland
    Item type: Journal Article
    Klaus, Valentin; Richter, Franziska Julia; Lüscher, Andreas; et al. (2024)
    Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
    Organic farming and other agri-environmental schemes (AES) are important policy tools to support environmental-friendly agriculture. Often, AES require a direct reduction of actual management intensity to sustain biodiversity and non-marketable ecosystem services. In addition to lower management intensity, differences in topography and soils between AES and non-AES land can occur, driven by the targeted placement of AES in the landscape. Many of the latter effects of an AES are, however, widely unknown and frequently ignored, limiting a comprehensive understanding of how organic farming and other AES deliver environmental outcomes. We analysed pedological, topographical and other spatial characteristics of parcels under two grassland AES, i.e., organic farming (vs. conventional) and extensive management (vs. intensive). Thus, this study assessed whether organic farming is related to differences in topography and soil conditions in both extensively and intensively managed grasslands in the study region in the north of Switzerland. Therefore, we combined a regional-scale spatial analysis of permanent grassland parcels and a soil survey. Both AES were tested not only in interaction with each other but also within the two main harvest types, i.e., meadows (mainly mown) and pastures (mainly grazed), resulting in eight distinct grassland types that were studied. Results show both AES to be linked to differences in soil nutrients as well as topographical and other spatial characteristics. We found interactions of the two AES with the harvest type, i.e., meadow versus pasture. This was particularly pronounced for extensively managed conventional meadows, which were frequent at low elevation and on land potentially suitable for arable farming. Extensively managed pastures and all organic grasslands exhibited reduced production conditions (i.e., higher elevation, steeper slope, lower soil phosphorus concentrations). Yet, differences between organic and conventional grasslands were by tendency more pronounced in intensively than extensively managed grasslands. Our results show that farmers preferentially adopted both AES on land not ideal for intensive production, with the exception of many extensively managed meadows in low elevations. Our study therefore demonstrated that an assessment of the ecological outcomes of an AES must not only account for direct effects via management restrictions but also for indirect effects via spatial targeting by farmers. More research is still needed to assess and compare direct and indirect effects of AES to support evidence-based policymaking and improve spatial targeting of different land-use types.
  • Increasing uptake of ecosystem service assessments: best practice check-lists for practitioners in Europe
    Item type: Review Article
    Barton, David N.; Immerzeel, Bart; Brander, Luke; et al. (2024)
    One Ecosystem
    Aiming at understanding the role of plural values in decision-making, the IPBES Values Assessment defined nature valuation broadly as including biophysical, economic and socio-cultural assessments, including ecosystem service assessment. IPBES reviews of scientific literature revealed a lack of documentation of uptake by stakeholders across method types. The EU project SELINA aims to contribute to increasing uptake of ES assessments at different governance levels. This paper reviews guidance in national and local applications by compiling study design recommendations for ES assessments from 111 guidance documents on ES assessments covering 12 European languages. Guidance documents are evaluated for seven diagnostic topics suggested to increase relevance and robustness of ES assessments: ecosystem condition variables; capacity-potential; supply demand; spatial scaling and resolution capability; social and health benefit compatibility; economic valuation compatibility; and uncertainty assessment. The paper develops the guidance recommendations across these topics into a set of checklists for practitioners and contractors of ES assessments. We find synergies between these study design features and gaps in guidance in relation to the policy cycle. Checklists are aimed at projects self assessing and improving their design and implementation to increase robustness of their ES assessment. From a knowledge supply perspective, this is expected to increase the likelihood of uptake of results by stakeholders. We end the paper with some cautions on limitations to uptake from different perspectives and the demand for and political uses of ES assessment knowledge.
Publications 1 - 2 of 2