Assessment of biodiversity in agriculture – a novel approach to an elusive LCA impact category

Agriculture, in particular mono-cropping and intensification of input use, can cause a sharp decline on biodiversity in a given landscape. Sustainable agriculture therefore requires assessment methods in order to understand... [ view full abstract ]

Agriculture, in particular mono-cropping and intensification of input use, can cause a sharp decline on biodiversity in a given landscape. Sustainable agriculture therefore requires assessment methods in order to understand disturbance effects on biodiversity, monitoring its state and relevance of agro-ecological measures by the farmer. However, LCA-compatible indicators are vastly missing. UNEP-SETAC has approached biodiversity through land use and land use changes but this approach lacks the granularity of informing farmers about the impact of agri-environmental strategies, which could improve the biodiversity potential on farm. Against this background, the concept for a LCA-compatible biodiversity indicator system was developed, which uses the existing characterization model of Chaudhary et al. (2015)[1] as a starting point. The authors provide characterization factors for 804 ecoregions and 6 land use types. To add the granularity of agri-environmental strategies pursued by farmers or landscape architects, a biodiversity factor set designed to reflect the impact of the farmers’ activities in three categories, i.e. i.) ‘on-crop’ (e.g. crop rotation, input and machinery usage), ii.) ‘off-crop’ (e.g. field margin management, biotope connectivity etc.) and iiii.) species conservation measures (e.g. feeding of wildlife) was developed. This farm factor set has been validated using a meta study (Dicks et al, 2014[2]) and an expert panel. This farm factor set will be used to characterizes and specify the land use factors reported by Chaudary et al. (2015). In combination with the rather granular set of farm-specific indicators, a system was created that can be used to estimate locally specific biodiversity impacts of agricultural production per se as well as the crop management practices of the farmer on the biodiversity potential.

[1] Chaudhary A, Verones F, Baan L de, Hellweg S (2015): Quantifying Land Use Impacts on Biodiversity: Combining Species-Area Models and Vulnerability Indicators. In: Environmental science & technology 49 (16), S. 9987–9995. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b02507

[2] Dicks, L V; Ashpole, J E; Dänhardt, J; James, K; Jönsson, A M; Randall, N et al. (2014): Farmland Conservation. Evidence for the effects of interventions in Northern and Western Europe. Pelagic Publishing, Cork. Accessed 01.02.2016; http://gbv.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=2038205.