BMBF-Förderschwerpunkt "Sustainable Landmanagement"

In order for land use activities to become more sustainable, it is important to assess them within their socio-ecological frame. This implies that ecosystem health and integrity is incorporated into land use decision making. In practice, the concept of ecosystem services which materializes ecological-economic linkages in a socio-ecosystem constitutes the basis of our analysis. Using different and complementary tools, we aim to value the ecosystem services circulating within farming systems nested in three case study regions. Valuation contributes to decision making by making apparent the benefits of functioning ecosystems for human beings and also by exposing different kind of values which may be attached to ecosystem services and their management. In a meta-analysis, land use scenarios will be compared using the valuation results for each ecosystem service.