Abstract
The aim of this project is to develop a predictive model for forecasting the ability of proposed policy changes to meet stated policy objectives and to evaluate the efficacy of this tool in terms of predictive accuracy and precision. Our focus will be on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its objective to maintain farmland biodiversity. Input to the model would be proposed measures from the CAP (e.g. subsidies for maintaining semi-natural grasslands or cross compliance) framed in expected changes in agricultural markets and the output would be predictions of species abundances and farmland biodiversity. The relationship between land-use and bird populations will be modelled by fitting a statistical model (habitat association model, HAM) to training data from specifically designed surveys, whereas the relationship between policy and land-use will be modelled using an agent-based simulation model together with high quality field level GIS data on farmer/manager, area and crop type etc.. The results from these two modelling efforts will be combined into predictions for farmland bird biodiversity. The approach will yield predictions for both land-use and bird biodiversity and these will be evaluated on historical and independent data with focus on accuracy and precision. Our results will be disseminated in international journals as well as through stakeholder interactions.
Sweden