Abstract
Much of the biodiversity value of agricultural landscapes is dependent on the preservation of small landscape elements, such as stonewalls, field islets, ditches, etc. These are subject to significant agri-environmental support, but the cost-effectiveness of these schemes—in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits to society—has not been rigorously evaluated. Our overriding aim is to develop an ecological-economic model that is suitable for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation policy. This will be achieved through transdisciplinary research where ecologists and economists will work together to develop methods for measuring the benefits provided by small landscape elements and estimating the costs to farmers of different management measures. A modification of the “replacement cost” concept will provide a common framework for integrating the ecological and economic aspects of the problem into the same mathematical model. In addition to ecological-economic methods, the project will a) develop methods for assessing the importance of small landscape elements for threatened species and as refuges for pollinators and natural enemies of crop pests, and to evaluate the ecosystem services provided by the latter two groups, and b) evaluate the effect of landscape structure and landscape history on species diversity in these habitats. Finally, we expect to provide policy recommendations for achieving more biodiversity value at less cost.
Sweden