Environmental Monitoring and Assessment | 2021
Ecosystem services and biodiversity of agricultural systems at the landscape scale
Abstract
Agricultural systems all over the world are key for supplying vital goods such as food, fibre and energy from biomass. These agricultural systems form the foundation of human material well-being. However, increasing intensification, monocultures and overexploitation have often led to the serious degradation of the ecosystems upon which agricultural systems are embedded. Therefore, the functioning of these systems and their constituent biodiversity are at risk (Beckmann et al. 2019). Designing more sustainable agricultural systems requires continued research on land use strategies and management that focuses not only on the provision of agricultural commodities but also on the supply of nonagricultural ecosystem services, the conservation of biodiversity and the stable conditions needed for ecosystem functioning (Tilman et al. 2002, Swinton et al. 2007). Agricultural land uses are driven by anthropogenic and natural factors and show site-specific advantages and disadvantages (Power 2010). Agricultural activities have the potential to enhance the provision of specific kinds of ecosystem services and biodiversity, while mismanagement often leads to degraded services, declines in biodiversity and degraded ecosystem conditions (Huang et al. 2015). Many of the fundamental processes and interactions affecting the long-term sustainability of such systems happen at the landscape scale. For example, pollination services provided by wild bees to agricultural crops increase with the amount of natural area in the farming landscape (Nicholson et al. 2017). As such, at the landscape scale, agroecosystems are not only suppliers of benefit for human well-being but also users of various ecosystem services, such as water and nutrient regulation, soil erosion control and pollination (Jones et al. 2016). Understanding this landscape scale is vital to our understanding of specific kinds of ecosystem interactions and, therefore, any potential land use conflicts caused by the divergent needs and preferences of stakeholders across a landscape. Environ Monit Assess (2021) 193(Suppl 1): 275 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-08857-x