Abstract
Agricultural land is a very important ecosystem that provides a range of services like food, maintenance of soil structure, and hydrological services with high ecological value to human wellbeing Ecosystem Services (ESs). Understanding the contribution of different agricultural practices to supply ESs would help inform choices about the most beneficial land use management. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are defined by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) as actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems, which address societal challenges (e.g., climate change, food and water security, or natural disasters) effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human wellbeing and biodiversity benefits. Some actions farmers can implement in the new Rural Development Programs (RDP 2021–2022 and 2023–2027) can be considered as NbS and could affect the quantity, quality, and time of some ESs related to water regulation and supply, N adsorption and erosion protection. This study aims to evaluate these ESs in different scenarios in the upper Foglia river basin (Italy) and at a local scale (farming), and to highlight the issue to compensate farmers for the production of public goods which benefit the whole society (ESs) by the implementation of RDP’s actions. These scenarios highlight how actions have positive effects on ecosystem services and their economic value related to land use management, on maintaining agricultural practices by integrating Water Frame Directive (2000/60/EC), Directive 2007/60/EC on the management of flood risks and highlighting the potential role of farmers in a high diversity landscape. This study highlights a new way to evaluate the processes of natural capital in the production of public goods, which benefits the whole society (ESs), by emphasizing the economic and environmental role of farmers in producing them and putting on the table data to trigger a PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) mechanism. To facilitate decision making, robust decision support tools are needed, underpinned by comprehensive cost-benefit analyses and spatially modeling in which agriculture can be a strategic sector to optimize food production and environmental protection in harmony with the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy.
Highlights
Agriculture is a dominant form of land management worldwide, and agricultural ecosystems account for almost 40% of land area [1]
The water regulation and supply services (WRSS), (Equation (3)), were estimated as composed by the volume of available water (AW) and considering the supply portion withheld by different land use as the contribution to water storage and natural release efficiency of water conservation (EW)
We have considered different actions that can be involved in AEA, for example, wooded buffer strips provide many ecosystem services relating to mitigating impacts of climate change and provide for water purification [78], or cover crops in vineyards can help mitigate many of the problems associated with excessive precipitation or soil erosion [79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95]
Summary
Agriculture is a dominant form of land management worldwide, and agricultural ecosystems account for almost 40% of land area [1]. In the European Union (EU) territory, rural areas account for over 77% (47% farmland, 30% forests) and their inhabitants, farming communities and other residents, representing approximately half of the entire population. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) aims to support agriculture to ensure food security (in the context of climate change) and to promote sustainable and balanced development throughout the European rural areas, including those where production conditions are difficult [2]. In Italy, with a man’s widespread presence in a differentiated landscape, specific agricultural and forestry practices have built an extensive water regulation network and stabilization of slopes contrasting erosion, especially in the past [5]
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