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The Less Favoured Area (LFA) scheme is a major element of the EU Rural Development Policy, aimed at supporting farming in areas with natural handicaps or low soil productivity. It has been in place since 1975 and accounts for 14% of total Community funding. In 2003, the European Court of Auditors recommended that the socio-economic criteria on which the current scheme is based be replaced by biophysical criteria. Reviews of the proposals suggest that in Atlantic climates of Northwest Europe, the new criteria do not delineate adequately areas where agricultural productivity is constrained by the biophysical environment and that such areas are instead demarcated by the occurrence of excess soil moisture conditions. In this paper, we review the impact of excess soil moisture conditions on the sustainability of farming systems and their role in constraining strategic and tactical farm management practices. In particular, we review the scientific evidence on the impact of excess soil moisture conditions on herbage growth, herbage utilization, farm operations and environmental sustainability. On the basis of this, we propose an additional biophysical criterion for the new delineation of LFAs, namely the length of time that soil water is in excess of field capacity ('field capacity days'). While there is no clear threshold for field capacity days above which agricultural sustainability is acutely constrained, the evidence reviewed in this paper suggests that the sustainability of intensive livestock farming and tillage systems is particularly challenging in scenarios where the 80 percentile of field capacity days exceeds 220-230days.

Ce rapport est disponible dans : EUR Publications of the European Commission

Soil is a vital resource with multiple functions and with high regional and internal variability. Accelerated soil erosion is a cause for decline in soil quality and is increasingly being recognized as a serious environmental problem. Soil erosion is a function of factors such as: land use and management, rainfall intensity, soil stability and resistance, slope. The Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment (PESERA) developed and calibrated a process-based and spatial model to quantify soil erosion by water and assess its risk across Europe (Kirkby, M. & Irvine, B., 2001). The model predicts erosion based on simulating overland runoff and estimation of a stabilized vegetation cover. The emphasis of the PESERA erosion model is the prediction of hillslope erosion and channel processes are not considered. Sediment yield is estimated from the number of days per month. The main data sources are: 1) the MARS meteorological database, 2) the European Soils Database, and 3) the GTOPO30 European Digital Elevation Model. Erosion is assumed to occur when rainfall exceeds the weighted mean surface storage of the stabilized ground cover. PESERA is used to predict possible effects of future changes in land use and climate across Europe through scenario analyses. The PESERA model was run on climate change scenarios derived from a regional Climate Model (RCM) developed by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research based on the SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) framework (Hadley Centre, 1998). The PESERA model provides policy makers with a regional soil erosion indicator. It allows quantifying and monitoring changes due to proposed or implemented policies such as CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), and as a consequence of climate and land use changes.

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