Agricultural landscapes are required to provide a multitude of ecosystem services and biodiversity. A balance between ecosystem services can be achieved following different land management strategies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prospects of two alternative land management strategies to account for climate change adapation needs and to maintain multifunctionality in an intensively managed agricultural region in Western Switzerland on the long term.
A participative modelling approach was taken to address this study aim. Two region-specific scenarios of land use and management changes were developed in collaboration with local stakeholders. An integrated modelling framework was calibrated and validated to evaluate the provision of multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity in the case study region for alternative land use/management scenarios under current and future climatic conditions. Indicators of ecosystem services and biodiversity considered in this study include low flows (defined as 5th percentile of daily river discharge in m3/s), nitrate concentrations at the catchment outlet in mg N/l, transported sediment in t/ha, crop yields in t/ha and vascular plant species richness.
Results suggest that nutrient and water limitations to plant productivity will increase with future climate change. Increasing inputs (i.e. fertilizers and irrigation water) can be considered obvious measures for adaptation in favour of food/fodder provisioning services. As our study results also show that water availability during summer and water quality are likely to deteriorate under climate changes, a potential risk of maladaptation emerges here: additional fertilizer application would add to the climate-induced deterioation of water quality, decrease biodiversity value and irrigation water abstractions would be increasingly restricted by resource availablity.
To prevent such maladaptive responses to climate change, adaptation efforts of farmers in the region need to be guided towards water saving farming practices and improvements in agricultural nutrient management to reduce leaching.