A Scale-Explicit Framework for Conceptualizing the Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Land Use Changes

Sustainability

Iago Lowe Hale²  Wilfred M. Wollheim¹  Richard G. Smith¹  Heidi Asbjornsen¹  André F. Brito²  Kirk Broders²  A. Stuart Grandy¹  Rebecca Rowe¹ 

[1] Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA; E-Mails:;Department of Biological Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA; E-Mails:

关键词: agriculture;    sustainability;    land use change;    ecosystem services;    nitrogen;    water quality;    carbon sequestration;    landscape;    impacts;    scale;    iSIDES;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su6128432

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Demand for locally-produced food is growing in areas outside traditionally dominant agricultural regions due to concerns over food safety, quality, and sovereignty; rural livelihoods; and environmental integrity. Strategies for meeting this demand rely upon agricultural land use change, in various forms of either intensification or extensification (converting non-agricultural land, including native landforms, to agricultural use). The nature and extent of the impacts of these changes on non-food-provisioning ecosystem services are determined by a complex suite of scale-dependent interactions among farming practices, site-specific characteristics, and the ecosystem services under consideration. Ecosystem modeling strategies which honor such complexity are often impenetrable by non-experts, resulting in a prevalent conceptual gap between ecosystem sciences and the field of sustainable agriculture. Referencing heavily forested New England as an example, we present a conceptual framework designed to synthesize and convey understanding of the scale- and landscape-dependent nature of the relationship between agriculture and various ecosystem services. By accounting for the total impact of multiple disturbances across a landscape while considering the effects of scale, the framework is intended to stimulate and support the collaborative efforts of land managers, scientists, citizen stakeholders, and policy makers as they address the challenges of expanding local agriculture.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.