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Identifying sustainable agricultural practices to support policy development requires a rigorous synthesis of scientific evidence based on experiments carried out around the world. In agricultural science, meta-analyses (MAs) are now commonly used to assess the impact of farming practices on a variety of outcomes, including crop and livestock productions, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, nitrate leaching, soil organic carbon, based on a large number of experimental data. MA has become a gold standard method for quantitative research synthesis, and the growing number of MAs available can potentially be used to inform decisions of policy makers. However, published MAs are heterogeneous both in content and quality, and a framework is needed to help scientists to report the results and quality levels of MAs in a rigorous and transparent manner. Such a framework must be implementable quickly - within weeks - to be operational and compatible with the time constraints of modern policymaking processes. In this paper, we propose a methodological framework for assessing the impacts of farming practices based on a systematic review of published MAs. The framework includes four main steps: (1) literature search of existing MAs, (2) screening and selection of MAs, (3) data extraction and quality assessment, and (4) reporting. Three types of reports are generated from the extracted data: individual reports summarizing the contents of each MA (MA summary reports), reports summarizing each of the impacts of a given farming practice on a specific environmental, climate mitigation, or production outcome (single-impact reports), and report summarizing all the impacts of a given farming practice on all the outcomes considered (general report). All these reports present the quality levels of the MAs examined on the basis of 16 quality criteria. The proposed framework is semi-automatic in the sense that the skeletons of the reports are generated automatically from the spreadsheet used for the data extraction and quality assessment. This semi-automatic procedure allows scientific experts to reduce the time needed in the reporting step. Since 2020, the proposed framework was successfully applied by a group of scientific experts to support decisions of EU policy makers, and examine a large diversity of single farming practices (e.g. nitrification inhibitors, biochar, liming) and cropping systems (e.g. organic systems, agroforestry) in a relatively short period of time. It provides an operational tool for scientists who want to supply policymakers with scientific evidence based on large numbers of experiments, in a timely and reproducible manner.

A novel European Union forest policy based on the best and most up-to-date information available is urgently needed. Without such change, forests will not provide the resources we need and will suffer heavily under climate change. Forest inventories and many information sources exist in all countries but are not properly used in European Union policymaking. We introduce a next-generation information tool that portrays a synchronized top-down European forest management strategies map, spatially weighing the multifunctionality of European forests. Updated forest inventories are critical for policymaking. This study presents an approach to map coordinated top-down European forest management strategies that spatially weighs the multifunctionality of European forests. Such an approach should help identify pathways to manage forests sustainably.

Current intensive arable production systems tend to favour food production at the cost of the provision of other ecosystem services. In order to decrease the environmental impact and increase the variety and level of ecosystem services delivery, arable farmers would need to change their current practices. Governance arrangements aimed at such changes of behaviour not only include those from government, but also from institutions as developed bottom-up by farmers, other actors and networks. This paper investigates the role that governance arrangements developed by groups of farmers in intensive arable production systems in The Netherlands may have in changing agronomic practices that will improve the delivery of regulating and cultural ecosystem services. We evaluate the arrangements according to their potential effects on farmers and their social environment. Firstly, we consider the effect on farmers’ motivation and ability to change their practices. And secondly we consider the legitimation of, and demand for behavioural change by their social environment. The results suggest that social learning and land lease are promising supportive governance arrangements for behavioural change, and that private and public governance arrangements can be complementary.

Plausible scenarios of future land use derived from model projections may differ substantially from what is actually desired by society, and identifying such mismatches is important for identifying policies to resolve them. This paper presents an approach to link explorative projections of future land use for the European Union to normative visions of desired land-use futures. We used the results of 24 scenario projections obtained from seven linked simulation models to explore uncertainty in future land-use developments. Land-use projections were linked to statements made by stakeholders for three normative visions of desired, future land use. The visions differed in the scale of multifunctionality of land use: at European (Best Land in Europe), regional (Regional Connected) or local (Local Multifunctional) level. To identify pathways to these visions, we analysed in which cases projected land-use changes matched with the land-use changes desired in the visions. We identified five pathways to the vision Regional Connected, two pathways to the vision Best Land in Europe, but no pathway to the vision Local Multifunctional. Our results suggest that policies have the ability to change the development of land use such that it is more in line with land-use futures desired by society. We believe our approach represents an interesting avenue for foresight studies on land use, as it combines the credibility from explorative scenarios with legitimacy and saliency of normative visions.

The concept of ecosystem services is widely used in the scientific literature and increasingly also in policy and practice. Nevertheless, operationalising the concept, i.e. putting it into practice, is still a challenge. We describe the approach of the EU-project OpenNESS (Operationalisation of Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital), which was created in response to this challenge to critically evaluate the concept when applied to real world problems at different scales and in different policy sectors. General requirements for operationalization, the relevance of conceptual frameworks and lessons learnt from 27 case study applications are synthesized in a set of guiding principles. We also briefly describe some integrative tools as developed in OpenNESS which support the implementation of the principles. The guiding principles are grouped under three major headlines: “Defining the problem and opening up the problem space”, “Considering ethical issues” and “Assessing alternative methods, tools and actions”. Real world problems are often “wicked” problems, which at first are seldom clear-cut and well-defined, but often rather complex and subject to differing interpretations and interests. We take account of that complexity and emphasise that there is not one simple and straightforward way to approach real world problems involving ecosystem services. The principles and tools presented are meant to provide some guidance for tackling this complexity by means of a transdisciplinary methodology that facilitates the operationalisation of the ecosystem services concept.

In the version of this Brief Communication originally published, the affiliation for Marta Perez-Soba, ‘EU Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy’, should have been listed as her present address; her main affiliation should have been ‘Wageningen Environmental Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands’; these have now been corrected. Additionally, owing to a technical issue, the Supplementary Information file did not originally appear with this article; the file is now uploaded.

With agricultural areas covering almost half of European land, proper management of agro-ecosystems is key toachieve the European Union’s environmental and climate objectives. This requires spatially explicit methods andindicators. We developed an approach for the classification of agricultural land by combining two main di-mensions i) land cover, using detailed geo-spatialized census data covering 63 individual crops; ii) managementintensity, measured as the anthropogenic energy required in the primary crop production. As a result weidentified 10 main crop systems further classified into 30‘crop-management systems’at a spatial resolution of 5arcminutes. The resulting maps show the spatial patterns of agricultural management intensity across Europe,both in absolute terms (total energy input per hectare) and relative to the dominant crop system in the spatialunit of analysis. The use of multiple intensity dimensions provides new, more detailed insights on agriculturalintensity by which areas that were previously classified as low-medium intensive - some permanent crops sys-tems or irrigated arable land - appear now as highly intensive. An expert-based evaluation was carried out on theintensity maps and corroborated the obtained results. The generated maps can be used to support decision-making in designing more targeted, context-specific agricultural and territorial policies. In particular,findingscan be relevant in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy post 2020 and the Biodiversity Strategytowards 2030, both of which will benefit from more detailed spatially explicit information to achieve their statedobjectives.

This study explores the implications of engaging students, versus professionals/experts, in pilot-testing of SDSS, and discusses likely differences in terms of expected outcomes for the given pilot-test. To this end we use data collected during two pilot tests of a novel SDSS that was developed by members of our project team. The pilot-tests were done with two different groups; one made of 13 doctoral students, while the other of 12 professionals/stakeholders. The pilot-test served to gather feedback on SDSS usability and other aspects of interest to the development team. On the basis of the outcomes obtained we develop an analytical framework meant to summarise what we come to notice as key aspects distinguishing how different types of testers will engage in an SDSS pilot-test, and the type of feedback these will consequently provide. These key aspects include expertise, stage of life, and institutional context (ESI). This framework could offer some help to other teams in planning, organizing, and delivering pilot-test, and processing the assessments received.

Progress towards sustainable development ultimately depends on policy makers' and practitioners' capacities to protect Natural Capital (NC) stocks so that they are not exploited beyond Earth's capability to renew them. This involves a sound understanding of the benefits and values derived by society from NC and ecosystem services (ES). Scientific evidence to support this understanding is growing rapidly, but access to the data, methods, tools and expertise that underpins this evidence base is fragmented, particularly at the science - policy - practice interfaces. Two large EU research projects have therefore developed a joint knowledge platform - called Oppla - aimed at providing access to a wide range of resources on NC and ES. This new approach in the EU Research Area aims not only at integrating knowledge into one single platform, but also at making this knowledge operational amongst communities of science, policy and practice. Furthermore, it fosters the more efficient use of research funds by providing an open and freely available platform in which existing and new NC and ES projects can integrate their outcomes. This paper focuses on the knowledge integration and some guidance tools within Oppla to help users to find research outcomes.

Human use of land increasingly alters the structure and the functioning of the environment. To ex-ante understand and anticipate these changes there is an increased need for readily available and operational land use change models. One of these models is CLUE, which has been used in many studies all over the world. These studies brought forward operational hurdles, that hamper model application. The overall objective of this paper is to present a new version of the CLUE model, iCLUE, that helps to overcome these hurdles. We describe the technical redevelopment, conceptual innovations, several applications and success factors and critical reflections. iCLUE minimizes manual error-prone actions, enhances ease-of-use, speeds up the operational modelling process and provides data visualisations to empower users to analyse and interpret results.

Spatial decision support systems (SDSS) represent a step forward in efforts to account for the spatial dimension in environmental decision-making. The aim of SDSS is to help policymakers and practitioners access, interpret and understand information from data, analyses and models, and guide them in identifying possible actions during a decision-making process. Researchers, however, report difficulties in up-take of SDSS by the intended users. Some suggest that this field would benefit from investigation of the social aspects involved in SDSS design, development, testing and use. Borrowing insights from the literature on science-policy interactions, we explore two key social processes: knowledge integration and learning. Using a sample of 36 scientific papers concerning SDSS in relation to environmental issues, we surveyed whether and how the selected papers reported on knowledge integration and learning. We found that while many of the papers mentioned communication and collaboration with prospective user groups or stakeholders, this was seldom underpinned by a coherent methodology for enabling knowledge integration and learning to surface. This appears to have hindered SDSS development and later adoption by intended users.

Heatwaves are threatening human wellbeing in our cities, but Green Urban Infrastructures (GUI) can contribute to reduce temperatures and the associated health risks, by virtue of their cooling capacity. GUI present different typologies and consequently different key components, such as soil cover, tree canopy cover and shape, which determines their capacity to provide cooling. The aim of this study is to propose an approach to estimate the cooling capacity provided by GUI in order to generate useful information for urban planners. The methods are based on the review of the literature to identify the functions of GUI that are involved in providing cooling, and the components of GUI that determine those functions, and then to combine them to provide an overall assessment of the cooling capacity. The approach was used to assess 50 different typologies of GUI, which are result of different combinations of the components that influence the cooling, for three climatic regions. An illustrative case study in the city of Amsterdam show the applicability of the approach. This work provides a contribution in the panorama of Ecosystem Service assessment tools to support the mainstreaming of Ecosystem-based measures (such as the creation of GUI) in the planning practice.

Maes, Joachim... et al.-- 10 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables, supplementary material https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2015.10.023, In the EU, the mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services, abbreviated to MAES, is seen as a key action for the advancement of biodiversity objectives, and also to inform the development and implementation of related policies on water, climate, agriculture, forest, marine and regional planning. In this study, we present the development of an analytical framework which ensures that consistent approaches are used throughout the EU. It is framed by a broad set of key policy questions and structured around a conceptual framework that links human societies and their well-being with the environment. Next, this framework is tested through four thematic pilot studies, including stakeholders and experts working at different scales and governance levels, which contributed indicators to assess the state of ecosystem services. Indicators were scored according to different criteria and assorted per ecosystem type and ecosystem services using the common international classification of ecosystem services (CICES) as typology. We concluded that there is potential to develop a first EU wide ecosystem assessment on the basis of existing data if they are combined in a creative way. However, substantial data gaps remain to be filled before a fully integrated and complete ecosystem assessment can be carried out, Balint Czúcz was supported by the Bolyai Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences under grant number BO/00138/12/8

The Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 Programme was created to develop and implement an EU research and innovation policy for more sustainable and resource efficient agriculture, forestry, inland water and marine systems that supply European society with sufficient food, feed, biomass, and other raw materials, as well as ecosystems services, and support thriving rural and coastal livelihoods. The European Commission has established Societal Challenge Advisory Groups to provide consistent and consolidated advice - by way of opinions, recommendations and reports - on relevant research objectives and scientific, technological and innovation priorities for its strategic and annual work programmes. Our Societal Challenge 2 Advisory Group includes a wide range of members with remarkably rich and diverse backgrounds and affiliations, including researchers, academics, former policymakers - stakeholders covering the whole spectrum of relevant research and innovation domains. Our Advisory Group has met twice formally since our establishment in February 2016, and has used other opportunities for extensive discussion and engagement on the issues surrounding this Societal Challenge. We see Societal Challenge 2 as not only extremely important as a challenge in itself, but also strongly linked with other Societal Challenges such as health, demographic change and wellbeing, climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials, and inclusive, innovative and reflective societies in a changing world. And as the agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food sectors comprise a very large number of smaller businesses – themselves serving large scale processing and retail business sectors – there are strong links between our contribution and the input of groups advising on innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises, international cooperation, nanotechnologies, advanced materials and advanced manufacturing and processing. Our Advisory Group‘s first task has been to prepare this report to answer five specific questions posed by the Commission and provide input into the strategic programming cycle of the Work Programme for 2018-2020. We have identified some overriding strategic priorities, and backed those with the results of a more detailed analysis of the gaps that need to be addressed. And we highlight the cross-cutting nature of this programme and the importance of an integrated approach to maximise the overall impact of the current Horizon 2020 programme. We hope that the insights in this report may also assist in the identification and prioritisation of research needs and strengthen the Commission‘s strategic and impact-oriented approach in future years.

Agricultural expansion and intensification are main drivers of land-use change in Brazil. Soybean is the major crop under expansion in the area. Soybean production involves large amounts of water and fertiliser that act as sources of contamination with potentially negative impacts on adjacent water bodies. These impacts might be intensified by projected climate change in tropical areas. A Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) serves as a tool to assess environmental impacts of water and fertiliser use. The aim of this study was to understand potential impacts on environmental sustainability of agricultural intensification close to a protected forest area of the Amazon under climate change. We carried out a WFA to calculate the water footprint (WF) related to soybean production, Glycine max, to understand the sustainability of the WF in the Tapajós river basin, a region in the Brazilian Amazon with large expansion and intensification of soybean. Based on global datasets, environmental hotspots — potentially unsustainable WF areas — were identified and spatially plotted in both baseline scenario (2010) and projection into 2050 through the use of a land-use change scenario that includes climate change effects. Results show green and grey WF values in 2050 increased by 304% and 268%, respectively. More than one-third of the watersheds doubled their grey WF in 2050. Soybean production in 2010 lies within sustainability limits. However, current soybean expansion and intensification trends lead to large impacts in relation to water pollution and water use, affecting protected areas. Areas not impacted in terms of water pollution dropped by 20.6% in 2050 for the whole catchment, while unsustainability increased 8.1%. Management practices such as water consumption regulations to stimulate efficient water use, reduction of crop water use and evapotranspiration, and optimal fertiliser application control could be key factors in achieving sustainability within a river basin.

While considerable progress has been made in understanding land use change, land system science continues to face a number of grand challenges. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on empirical land system studies, land system modelling and the analysis of future visions of land system change. Contemporary landscapes are contingent outcomes of past and present patterns, processes and decisions. Thus, empirical analysis of past and present land-use change has an important role in providing insights into the socio-economic and ecological processes that shape land use transitions. This is especially important with respect to gradual versus rapid land system dynamics and in understanding changes in land use intensity. Combining the strengths of empirical analysis with multi-scale modelling will lead to new insights into the processes driving land system change. New modelling methods that combine complex systems thinking at a local level with macro-level economic analysis of the land system would reconcile the multi-scale dynamics currently encapsulated in bottom-up and top-down modelling approaches. Developments in land use futures analysis could focus on integrating explorative scenarios that reflect possible outcomes with normative visions that identify desired outcomes. Such an approach would benefit from the broad and in-depth involvement of stakeholders in order to link scientific findings to political and societal decision-making culminating in a set of key choices and consequences. Land system models have an important role in supporting future land use policy, but model outputs require scientific interpretation rather than being presented as predictions. The future of land system science is strongly dependent on the research community's capacity to bring together the elements of research discussed in the paper, via empirical data collection and analysis of observed processes, computer simulation across scale levels and futures analysis of alternative, normative visions through stakeholder engagement. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

The role that the agricultural sector plays in rural areas has considerably changed in the last five decades, and is reflected in a major shift towards multi-dimensional, multi-sectoral land use. Existing European rural typologies are mostly one-dimensional, based on a rather coarse administrative scale data and are unable to define adequately the diversity of the regions involved. The rural typology presented in this paper has been produced as a response to a new policy need for typologies addressing the diversity in regional rurality. This paper describes the method developed and explores the relevance of the results for future rural policies. This new rural typology incorporates two dimensions identified by statistical screening of a range of geographical and socioeconomic data related to the territorial variation of European rural land. The use of high-resolution raster data at 1 km2 resolution provides large flexibility for the construction of individual classifications, with a variable number of classes for a variety of objectives. In the example presented, nine divisions were produced, which were subsequently summarised into three rural classes termed Peri-urban, Rural and Deep Rural. The rural typology enables the consistent identification of comparable rural areas and intergradations with urban land in the European territory, and describes the degree of generalisation that is possible. In addition, it provides a spatially explicit framework for scientific analysis and communication to both European policy makers and local stakeholders.

In the last decade efforts have been carried out by the scientific community aimed at building integrated frameworks to support the decision-making process when sustainability issues are addressed. This paper proposes a further advancement in integrated assessment procedures by setting up an operational multi-scale and transparent framework, which comprises the assessment of European regions in terms of sustainability, and the identification of the impact that policy options might have on the sustainability of these regions. The framework is designed for use in ex ante sustainability impact assessment of policy scenarios on multifunctionality of land use and integrates economic, environmental and social issues across a variety of sectors (agriculture, forestry, transport, tourism and energy). The proposed method provides a conceptual framework applicable at different scales (European, regional), and takes into account the great variability of European regions. The described methodology is based on linear additive models to weight and aggregate selected indicators to a set of land use functions identified to describe the goods and services provided by the different land uses that summarise the most relevant economic, environmental and social issues of a region. The framework is designed to allow the evaluation of impacts at an international scale (e.g. the European Union), or on selected regions. The aggregation framework can be used to evaluate the impact that policy options have on the sustainability of multifunctional land use systems with competing demands. A conceptual envelope, called the “trade-off evaluation space”, delineates all possible developments in the functions of the land. The sustainability limits identify the subset of ‘acceptable’ policy options within the trade-off evaluation space, so that the distance of each land use function from sustainability limits can be estimated and trade-offs between the different functions of the multifunctional land use system can be identified. The proposed methodology is adaptable to different contexts: if the assumption is taken that all land use functions are equally weighted the framework can be used to analyse policy cases and take decisions on policy options at the European or regional level. However, at the local-scale the framework can also be applied through a participatory approach and the distribution of weights can be rediscussed with local stakeholders. In both cases the proposed system can be used as a tool for discussion among all interested parties.

Land use is a cornerstone of human civilization, but also intrinsically linked to many global sustainability challenges—from climate change to food security to the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Understanding the underlying technological, institutional and economic drivers of land-use change, and how they play out in different environmental, socio-economic and cultural contexts, is therefore important for identifying effective policies to successfully address these challenges. In this regard, much can be learned from studying long-term land-use change. We examined the evolution of European land management over the past 200 years with the aim of identifying (1) key episodes of changes in land management, and (2) their underlying technological, institutional and economic drivers. To do so, we generated narratives elaborating on the drivers of land use-change at the country level for 28 countries in Europe. We qualitatively grouped drivers into land-management regimes, and compared changes in management regimes across Europe. Our results allowed discerning seven land-management regimes, and highlighted marked heterogeneity regarding the types of management regimes occurring in a particular country, the timing and prevalence of regimes, and the conditions that result in observed bifurcations. However, we also found strong similarities across countries in the timing of certain land-management regime shifts, often in relation to institutional reforms (e.g., changes in EU agrarian policies or the emergence and collapse of the Soviet land management paradigm) or to technological innovations (e.g., drainage pipes, tillage and harvesting machinery, motorization, and synthetic fertilizers). Land reforms frequently triggered changes in land management, and the location and timing of reforms had substantial impacts on land-use outcomes. Finally, forest protection policies and voluntary cooperatives were important drivers of land-management changes. Overall, our results demonstrate that land-system changes should not be conceived as unidirectional developments following predefined trajectories, but rather as path-dependent processes that may be affected by various drivers, including sudden events.

We cannot predict the future with certainty, but we know that it is influenced by our current actions, and that these in turn are influenced by our expectations. This is why future scenarios have existed from the dawn of civilization and have been used for developing military, political and economic strategies. Does the existence of scenarios help to accomplish the desired outcomes? It is fair to say that in most cases the answer to this question is no, simply because history is normally an open, undetermined process, where sudden and unexpected events can play a decisive, disruptive role. Could the French Revolution have been prevented if Louis XVI’s counsellors had had the imagination to develop a shock-scenario, foreseeing the impact of the volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Japan, and the consequent crop failures in 1784 and 1785 and food scarcity in France – often cited as a proximate cause of the French Revolution in 1789? This is debatable to say the least.

Patches of semi-natural vegetation, encompassing both woody vegetation and grassland, located within larger areas of agricultural land, are acknowledged to play an important role in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service supply. In spite of its relevance, semi-natural vegetation in agricultural land (SENAGRI) has never been mapped at the EU spatial extent. To recover from this information lack, the original contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it delivers the first 1 km resolution continuous map of abundance of SENAGRI features at the EU scale. Second, it provides an EU region-based assessment of the correlation between the SENAGRI map and existing maps of ecosystem service supplies. The proposed mapping system adopts a convergence-of-evidence approach, whose inputs are multi-resolution geospatial information/data sources, like the 25 m resolution satellite Image 2000/Image 2006 mosaics, to be mapped by the fully automatic Spectral Rule-based preliminary Classifier (SRC), and several ancillary classification maps, like the 1 ha-resolution CORINE Land Cover (CLC) 2006 map and the 25 m resolution European Forest 2006 map. Validation of the SENAGRI output map with the Land Use and land Cover Area frame Sampling (LUCAS) 2006 reference data set reveals that the SENAGRI map accuracy is superior to those of the individual classification maps adopted as input. A region-specific analysis at the EU scale shows that: (i) correlation between SENAGRI abundance and regulating ecosystem services is significant (R2 = 0.67) and (ii) almost no correlation is found between SENAGRI abundance and provisioning ecosystem services. Finally, agricultural land in EU regions is parameterized by SENAGRI abundance, provisioning and regulating ecosystem services supply data. These EU region-specific values reveal that, within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a portfolio of agro-environmental schemes is recommended to ensure agro-ecosystem sustainability, in compliance with the EU Strategy for Biodiversity to 2020 and the targets of the CAP post-2013., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

Despite the increasing availability of environmental and socio-economic data and the last generation of process-driven models for ecosystem and ecosystem services (ES) assessment and management, their exploitation and use to support decision - and policymaking is often limited due to issues of scale, knowledge gaps, lack of user-friendly tools and capacities to translate and understand users' demands and needs (Grant et al., 2008; de Groot et al., 2010; TEEB, 2010). More particularly, there is a lack of a decision support toolbox (DST) that specifically considers changes and dynamics in the capacity of ecosystems, from a multi-functional perspective, or that allows decision-makers to explore impacts on ES and alternatives from ecosystem management multi-scale and multi-level perspectives (Winograd, 2010). Understanding and using the concept of ES by decision - and policy-makers is a fundamental step towards their operationalization (Maes et al., 2011). However, this understanding has proved to be rather challenging since it involves connecting and integrating the environmental and economic sciences with the decision-making process (TEEB, 2010). Many potential conflicts/trade-offs or agreements/synergies between ES in multiple sectors and on multiple scales make it difficult to gain a comprehensive view of the impacts of a measure (TEEB, 2010; Maes et al., 2011).

Part 5. Regional and local evaluation - 17; International audience; The dramatic changes in land use observed in Europe in the last fifty years have generally resulted in improvement of human welfare and economic development. On the other hand, they have caused serious environmental problems. There is therefore a need for approaches that help to understand in an integrative way the economic, environmental and societal impacts that land use changes have on sustainability. Sustainability Impact Assessment(SIA), which assesses the impact of policies on sustainability, addresses this challenge. SIA partly builds on the concept of the multifunctionality of land which helps to deal with the complexity of interactions between different land uses, their temporal and spatial changes, and finally how policies might steer those changes towards sustainability. Following this need for true integration of economic, environmental and societal issues across policy areas at a meaningful spatial scale, an interdisciplinary team in the SENSOR project has developed an innovative conceptual framework to assess the impact of policies on land sustainability at various levels of spatial aggregation i.e. the Land Use Functions (LUFs) framework. LUFs are the goods and services provided by the different land uses that summarize the most relevant economic, environmental and societal issues of a region. The LUFs framework integrates the changes observed in a large set of impact indicators into nine Land Use Functions (LUFs), which are balanced among the three pillars of sustainability. The LUFs framework makes it possible for policy makers, scientists and stakeholders to identify at a glance those functions of the land which are hindered or enhanced under various scenarios of land use change, and makes it possible to explore the trade-offs between them. The LUFs framework allows therefore the building of assessment across disciplines, sectors and the three sustainability dimensions. It has proved to be very helpful for the systematisation of relevant sustainability indicators within SENSOR and is intended to be further used in other projects as a tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment. The rationale leading to the LUFs concept, its definition and the conceptual framework is described in this chapter. We conclude that the concept of LUFs allows users to make explicit the analytical links between multifunctional land use and sustainable development, and therefore to look at multifunctionality as a way towards sustainability.

Dry deposition of NH$and NOx(NO and NO#) can affect plant metabolism at the cellular and whole-plant level.Gaseous pollutants enter the plant mainly through the stomata, and once in the apoplast NH$dissolves to formNH%+, whereas NO#dissolves to form NO$−and NO#−. The latter compound can also be formed after exposureto NO. There is evidence that NH$-N and NOx-N can be reversibly stored in the apoplast. Temporary storagemight affect processes such as absorption rate, assimilation and re-emission. Once formed, NO$−and NO#−canbe reduced, and NH%+can be assimilated via the normal enzymatic pathways, nitrate reductase (NR), nitritereductase and the glutamine synthetase}glutamate synthase (GS}GOGAT) cycle. Fumigation with lowconcentrations of atmospheric NH$increasesin vitroglutamine synthetase activity, but whether this involves bothor only one of the GS isoforms is still an open question. There seems to be no correlation between fumigation withlow concentrations of NH$andin vitroGDH activity. The contribution of atmospheric NH$and NO#depositionto the N budget of the whole plant has been calculated for various atmospheric pollutant concentrations andrelative growth rates (rgrs). It is concluded that at current ambient atmospheric N concentrations the directimpact of gaseous N uptake by foliage on plant growth is generally small.Key words : Apoplastic storage, gaseous nitrogen deposition, glutamate dehydrogenase, glutamine synthetase,plant nitrogen demand, sulphur dioxide root}shoot interaction, ammonia, nitrogen oxides.

The publication of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 requires a substantial effort in terms of operationalizing the ecosystem service concept. Target 2 of the Strategy in fact advocates that ecosystems and their services have to be “maintained and enhanced” in the current decade. This necessitates the development of methods to map and assess ecosystem services at regional and Country level, which is recognized under Action 5 of the strategy. Research on ecosystem services mapping and valuing has boosted in recent years, nevertheless compared to other groups (provisioning, regulating) cultural ecosystem services are not yet fully integrated into operational frameworks. One reason is the transdisciplinarity which is required to address the issue: by their own definition cultural services (which encompass physical, intellectual, spiritual interactions with biota) need to be analysed from multiple perspectives (i.e. ecological, social, behavioural). A second reason is most likely the lack of data for large-scale assessments, being direct surveys a main source of information. Among cultural ecosystem services, assessment of outdoor recreation can be based on a large pool of literature developed mostly in social and medical science, and landscape and ecology studies. This paper presents a methodology to include recreation in the conceptual framework for EU wide ecosystem assessments (Maes et al., 2013), which couples existing approaches for recreation management at Country level with behavioural data derived from surveys and literature, and population distribution analysis. The result is a frame that can be applied to quantify the capacity of outdoor recreation as ecosystem service to citizens in the EU, and describe through Country profiles differences in provision, as input to land planning processes., JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resources

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly mainstreamed in EU policies. For proper development and implementation of the policies the availability of spatially explicit information on ES is essential. This paper presents a synthesis of the PRESS initiative (PEER Research on Ecosystem Services). In support of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, this initiative demonstrated a multi-scale mapping and assessment approach of ES using case studies on recreation, water purification and pollination. The spatial assessment of these ES included maps displaying the potential and actual supply of these services at different spatial scales in both biophysical and monetary units. Scenarios were used to estimate changes in the flow of ES and to estimate benefits that arise from policy changes., JRC.H.1-Water Resources

Measures of climate change adaptation often involve modification of land use and land use planning practices. Such changes in land use affect the provision of various ecosystem goods and services. Therefore, it is likely that adaptation measures may result in synergies and trade-offs between a range of ecosystems goods and services. An integrative land use modelling approach is presented to assess such impacts for the European Union. A reference scenario accounts for current trends in global drivers and includes a number of important policy developments that correspond to on-going changes in European policies. The reference scenario is compared to a policy scenario in which a range of measures is implemented to regulate flood risk and protect soils under conditions of climate change. The impacts of the simulated land use dynamics are assessed for four key indicators of ecosystem service provision: flood risk, carbon sequestration, habitat connectivity and biodiversity. The results indicate a large spatial variation in the consequences of the adaptation measures on the provisioning of ecosystem services. Synergies are frequently observed at the location of the measures itself, whereas trade-offs are found at other locations. Reducing land use intensity in specific parts of the catchment may lead to increased pressure in other regions, resulting in trade-offs. Consequently, when aggregating the results to larger spatial scales the positive and negative impacts may be off-set, indicating the need for detailed spatial assessments. The modelled results indicate that for a careful planning and evaluation of adaptation measures it is needed to consider the trade-offs accounting for the negative effects of a measure at locations distant from the actual measure. Integrated land use modelling can help land use planning in such complex trade-off evaluation by providing evidence on synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services, different policy fields and societal demands. © 2012 The Author(s).

Nitrogen metabolism of the needles of 40-year-old Douglas fir and Scots pine trees, growing in two forest stands on cation-poor and acidic sandy soil with a relatively high atmospheric nitrogen deposition was studied. The composition of the free amino acid (FAA) pool, the concentrations of total nitrogen and soluble protein and the activities of glutamine synthetase (GS) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) were determined in the needles. An excessive nitrogen supply by a high atmospheric nitrogen deposition in both forest stands was indicated by the high concentrations of total nitrogen and the amino acids arginine, glutamic acid, glutamine and aspartic acid in control trees. In addition the effect of optimal nutrition and water supply (fertigation) on the needle nitrogen metabolism was evaluated. The total concentration of the FAA pool in needles of both tree species was lower in the fertigated than in the non-fertigated (control) trees, except for 1-year-old needles of Scots pine, in which the concentration after fertigation did not differ from the control. The lower total FAA concentration in the fertigated trees could be attributed to arginine, the concentration of which was on average 60% lower than in the control. Neither the concentration of soluble protein nor the activity of GS were influenced by fertigation. The activity of GDH in fertigated trees only differed significantly from the control in October. Scots pine needles had higher concentrations of protein (50%) and higher activities of GS (44%) and GDH (25%) than Douglas fir needles. Possible explanations for the lower vitality of Douglas fir compared to Scots pine are given.

Four-year-old saplings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were exposed for 8 wk in controlled-environment chambers to charcoal-filtered air (FB), FA supplemented with 754 mg m(-3) (650 mu l l(-1)) CO2, FA supplemented with 100 mu g m(-3) NH3 and FA + CO2 + NH3. Elevated CO2 induced a significant increase in the concentrations of NH4+ and NO3- in the soil solution, while exposure to NH3 enhanced the soil NH4+ concentration. Elevated CO2 significantly increased needle biomass and area, and decreased specific leaf area (SLA) and N concentration in the needles. The activity of peroxidase (POD) was decreased, while the activities of glutamine synthetase (GS) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) were only slightly affected. Gaseous NH3 enhanced the concentration of N, soluble proteins and the GS activity in the needles, while it decreased the POD and GDH activities. The effects of elevated CO2 + NH3 on needle biomass production, N metabolism and POD activity were smaller than the effects of single exposures to elevated CO2 or NH3, suggesting that elevated CO2 and NH3 counteract each other and disturb needle physiology. The possible mechanisms underlying the negative interactions of elevated CO2 and NH3 are discussed. The expected stimulation of biomass production by elevated CO2 may be reduced in the presence of atmospheric NH3.

Four-year-old seedlings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were exposed to filtered air (FA), and to FA supplemented with NH3 (60 and 240 mu g m(-3)) in controlled-environment chambers for 14 weeks. Exposure to the higher NH, concentration resulted in an increased activity of glutamine synthetase (GS, EC 6.3.1.2), and an increase in the concentrations of soluble proteins, total nitrogen, free amino acids and leaf pigments in the needles. The GS activity (mu mol g(-1) fresh weight h(-1)) in the needle extract increased to levels 69% higher than in FA and the soluble protein concentration to levels 22% higher. Total nitrogen concentration in the needles was 42% higher than in FA, while the free amino acid concentration was 300% higher, which was caused by an increase in arginine, glutamate, aspartate and glutamine. Chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and carotenoid concentrations were 29, 38 and 11% higher, respectively. Neither the glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH, EC 1.4.1.2) activity nor the concentrations of free NH4+ and glucose in the needles were affected by exposure to NH3. After NH3 fumigation at 240 mu g m(-3), the starch concentration decreased by 39% relative to the FA. The results indicate that the metabolism of Scots pine acclimates to concentrations of NH3 which an 3 to 10 times higher than the average concentration in areas with intensive stock farming. The possible mechanisms underlying acclimation to NH3 are discussed.

A range of new spatial datasets classifying the European environment has been constructed over the last few years. These datasets share the common objective of dividing European environmental gradients into convenient units, within which objects and variables of interest have relatively homogeneous characteristics. The stratifications and typologies can be used as a basis for up-scaling, for stratified random sampling of ecological resources, for the representative selection of sites for studies across the continent and for the provision of frameworks for modeling exercises and reporting at the European scale. This paper provides an overview of five recent European stratifications and typologies, constructed for contrasting objectives, and differing in spatial and thematic detail. These datasets are: the Environmental Stratification (EnS), the European Landscape Classification (LANMAP), the Spatial Regional Reference Framework (SRRF), the Agri-Environmental Zonation (SEAMzones), and the Foresight Analysis for Rural Areas Of Europe (FARO-EU) Rural Typology. For each classification the objective, background, and construction of the dataset are described, followed by a discussion of its robustness. Finally, applications of each dataset are summarized. The five stratifications and typologies presented here give an overview of different research objectives for constructing such classifications. In addition they illustrate the most up to date methods for classifying the European environment, including their limitations and challenges. As such, they provide a sound basis for describing the factors affecting the robustness of such datasets. The latter is especially relevant, since there is likely to be further interest in European environmental assessment. In addition, advances in data availability and analysis techniques, will probably lead to the construction of other typologies in the future.

Ex ante impact assessment can help in structuring the analysis of human-environment interactions thereby supporting land use decision making for sustainable development. The contributions to this special feature focus on some of the challenges of making land use impact assessment operational for policy making. A total of nine papers deal with the needs and uses of assessment tools for policy making at the European level, with the value-based influence in scenario development, and with ex ante impact assessment studies in different contexts, spatial systems, and for different purposes and user groups. The concept of landscape multifunctionality was implicitly or explicitly employed as an integrating entity between socioeconomic and biogeophysical features of a spatial system. Three major aspects were revealed that could improve the relevance of the policy of land use impact assessment: the involvement of decision makers early on in the design of the impact assessment study; the integration of quantitative analysis with participatory valuation methods; and the robust and transparent design of the analytical methods.

The use of science-based tools for impact assessment has increasingly gained focus in addressing the complexity of interactions between environment, society, and economy. For integrated assessment of policies affecting land use, an analytical framework was developed. The aim of our work was to apply the analytical framework for specific scenario cases and in combination with quantitative and qualitative application methods. The analytical framework was tested for two cases involving the ex ante impact assessment of: (1) a European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) financial reform scenario employing a modeling approach and combined with a comprehensive indicator analysis and valuation; and (2) a regional bioenergy policy scenario, employing a fully participatory approach. The results showed that European land use in general is less sensitive to changes in the Common Agricultural Policy, but in the context of regions there can be significant impacts on the functions of land use. In general, the implementation of the analytical framework for impact assessment proved to be doable with both methods, i.e., with the quantitative modeling and with the qualitative participatory approach. A key advantage of using the system of linked quantitative models is that it makes possible the simultaneous consideration of all relevant sectors of the economy without abstaining from a great level of detail for sectors of particular interest. Other advantages lie in the incontestable character of the results. Based on neutral, existing data with a fixed set of settings and regions, an absolute comparability and reproducibility throughout Europe can be maintained. Analyzing the pros and cons of both approaches showed that they could be used complementarily rather than be seen as competing alternatives.

Young saplings of Pinus sylvestris L. were exposed to gaseous NH3 at 53 or 105 μg m−3 for one year in open-top chambers. Saplings received 15N-labelled (NH4)2SO4 via the soil. To examine the importance of foliar N uptake, changes in the concentration of total and labelled N in the needles were followed. Increase in needle biomass and N concentration were found in trees exposed to NH3, confirming that atmospheric NH3 acted as a N fertilizer. NH3 had a greater and quicker effect than (NH4)2SO4: compared with the growth in ambient air, the N concentration in the needles exposed to NH3 had increased by 49% in four months, while the increase after highest N-fertilization (200 kg N ha−1 y−1) was only 8%. The small contribution of NH4 + fertilization to the total N concentration was not due to a deficient N uptake: the 15N concentration in the needles increased significantly with time. On the other hand, NH3 uptake in shoots may have a negative effect on the NH4 + root uptake. The relation between plant N and atmospheric NH3 concentration was non-linear and possible reasons for this observation are discussed. Fumigation with NH3 significantly decreased the ratios of K/N and P/N, showing that fumigation disrupted the nutrient balance.

Young saplings of Pinus sylvestris were fumigated for 3 months with ammonia in concentrations ranging from 0 to 240 μg m-3. Despite the much higher concentrations than normal in the field, no visible damage occurred. Photosynthesis, dark respiration, transpiration and biomass production were stimulated. At 240 μg m-3 with high irradiance (PAR: 950 μmol m-2 s-1), net photosynthesis was stimulated by 24% and dark respiration by 76%. Intitial light use efficiency was not significantly affected. Transpiration increased, both in the dark and at 950 μmol m-2 s-1 by 40% and 57%, respectively. In the presence of ammonia, stomatal control was less efficient. Though growth of roots was not affected by NH3, that of current year needles was stimulated, resulting in an increased mass ratio of needles to roots. The nitrogen content of the needles increased, but the contents of other mineral components did not change significantly. Due to increased transpiration per unit of needle area and increased mass of needles per tree, water loss per tree was about twice as high in the treatment with 240 μg m-3 as in the control. Towards the end of fumigation, a 10-day period without water supply followed and then the water potential of the shoots was measured as an indicator of water demand. This demand was higher with higher concentrations of NH3, suggesting a higher risk of injury from drought.

Livestock remains the world’s largest user of land and is strongly related to grassland and feed-crop production. Assessments of environmental impacts of livestock farming require detailed knowledge of the presence of livestock, farming practices, and environmental conditions. The present Europe-wide livestock distribution information is generally restricted to a spatial resolution of NUTS 2 (province level). This paper presents a modelling approach to determine the spatial distribution of livestock at the landscape level. Location factors for livestock occurrence were explored and applied to consistent and harmonized EU-wide regional statistics to produce a detailed spatial distribution of livestock numbers. Both an expert-based and an empirical approach were applied in order to disaggregate the data to grid level. The resulting livestock maps were validated. Results differ between the two downscaling approaches but also between livestock types and countries. While both the expert-based and empirical approach are equally suited to modelling herbivores, in general, the spatial distribution of monogastrics can be better modelled by applying the empirical approach.

Land use includes those human activities that exhibit a spatial dimension and that change the bio-geophysical conditions of land. Land use policy making at European level aims at fostering sustainability pathways of natural resource use and rural development through the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation while supporting social cohesion in rural areas. Targeted policy making requires tools for the ex ante assessment of impacts of policy driven land use changes on sustainable development opportunities in European regions. These tools have to cover all relevant land use sectors and impact issues including their interrelations. They have to be spatially explicit, allow scenario analysis of possible future developments, be based on reproducible analyses, and be transparent and easy to use. The European Commission funded Integrated Project SENSOR is dedicated to develop such ex-ante Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools (SIAT) for land use in European regions. SIAT is designed as a meta modelling toolkit, in which global economic trend and policy scenarios are translated into land use changes at 1km2 grid resolution for the area of Europe. Based on qualitative and quantitative indicator analyses, impacts of simulated land use changes on social, environmental and economic sustainability issues are assessed at regional (NUTS2/3) scale. Valuation of these impacts is based on the concept of multifunctionality of land use. It is conducted through expert and stakeholder valuations leading to the determination of sustainability choice spaces for European regions. This paper presents the analytical approach in SENSOR and describes the impact assessment framework.

Both science and policy require a practical, transmissible, and reproducible procedure for surveillance and monitoring of European habitats, which can produce statistics integrated at the landscape level. Over the last 30 years, landscape ecology has developed rapidly, and many studies now require spatial data on habitats. Without rigorous rules, changes from baseline records cannot be separated reliably from background noise. A procedure is described that satisfies these requirements and can provide consistent data for Europe, to support a range of policy initiatives and scientific projects. The methodology is based on classical plant life forms, used in biogeography since the nineteenth century, and on their statistical correlation with the primary environmental gradient. Further categories can therefore be identified for other continents to assist large scale comparisons and modelling. The model has been validated statistically and the recording procedure tested in the field throughout Europe. A total of 130 General Habitat Categories (GHCs) is defined. These are enhanced by recording environmental, site and management qualifiers to enable flexible database interrogation. The same categories are applied to areal, linear and point features to assist recording and subsequent interpretation at the landscape level. The distribution and change of landscape ecological parameters, such as connectivity and fragmentation, can then be derived and their significance interpreted.

List of Authors.- List of Authors.- Sustainability Impact Assessment: concepts and approaches.- Ex-ante Impact Assessments (IA) in the European Commission - an overview.- Impact Assessment in the European Commission in relation to Multifunctional Land Use.- An institutional analysis of land use modelling in the European Commission.- Ex ante impact assessment of land use changes in European regions - the SENSOR approach.- Transfer into decision support: The Sustainability Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT).- Scenario modelling of land use changes.- Scenarios: Driving forces and policies.- Cross sector land use modelling framework.- Tourism geography in Europe.- Landscape level simulation of land use change.- Spatial representation and data issues for European regions.- Regional socio-economic profiles for assessment of European land use related policies: the SENSOR experience.- A Spatial Regional Reference Framework for Sustainability Assessment in Europe.- Requirements for data management and maintenance to support regional land use research.- European level indicator framework.- An indicator framework for analysing sustainability impacts of land use change.- Indicators for assessing the environmental impacts of land use change across Europe.- Reflections on Social and Economic Indicators for Land Use Change.- Weighting and aggregation of indicators for sustainability impact assessment in the SENSOR context.- Regional and local evaluation.- Land use functions - a multifunctionality approach to assess the impact of land use changes on land use sustainability.- Limits and targets for a regional sustainability assessment: an interdisciplinary exploration of the threshold concept.- Sustainability Impact Assessments: limits, thresholds and the Sustainability Choice Space.- Key sustainability issues in European sensitive areas - a participatory approach.- Key sustainability issues and the spatial classification of sensitive regions in Europe.

Land use is a key human activity, which, through the exploitation of natural resources, fosters socio-economic development and alters structures and processes in the environment. At the European level, the Sustainable Development Strategy stresses the need for real integration of economic, environmental and social issues across policy areas. In particular, land use policy aims to promote sustainability pathways of natural resources use and rural development through the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation while supporting social cohesion. Manifested with the idea of multifunctional land use,the environment is understood to provide a portfolio of functionalities, which, through proper land use management, can be exploited as environmental goods and services for the benefit of society. A sustainable way of managing land use and exploiting environmental functionalities requires tools that can provide anticipations of possible impacts of land use decisions at all levels of governance.

Under benign environmental conditions, plant growth is generally stimulated by elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations. When environmental conditions become sub- or supra-optimal for growth, changes in the biomass enhancement ratio (BER; total plant biomass at elevated CO2 divided by plant biomass at the current CO2 level) may occur. We analysed literature sources that studied CO22environment interactions on the growth of herbaceous species and tree seedlings during the vegetative phase. For each experiment we calculated the difference in BER for plants that were grown under 'optimal' and 'non-optimal' conditions. Assuming that interactions would be most apparent if the environmental stress strongly diminished growth, we scaled the difference in the BER values by the growth reduction due to the stress factor. In our compilation we found a large variability in CO22environment interactions between experiments. To test the impact of experimental design, we simulated a range of analyses with a plant-to-plant variation in size common in experimental plant populations, in combination with a number of replicates generally used in CO22environment studies. A similar variation in results was found as in the compilation of real experiments, showing the strong impact of stochasticity. We therefore caution against strong inferences derived from single experiments and suggest rather a reliance on average interactions across a range of experiments. Averaged over the literature data available, low soil nutrient supply or sub-optimal temperatures were found to reduce the proportional growth stimulation of elevated CO2. In contrast, BER increased when plants were grown at low water supply, albeit relatively modestly. Reduced irradiance or high salinity caused BER to increase in some cases and decrease in others, resulting in an average interaction with elevated CO2 that was not significant. Under high ozone concentrations, the relative growth enhancement by elevated CO2 was strongly increased, to the extent that high CO2 even compensated in an absolute way for the harmful effect of ozone on growth. No systematic difference in response was found between herbaceous and woody species for any of the environmental variables considered.

Under benign environmental conditions, plant growth is generally stimulated by elevated atmospheric CO