Ecosystem Integrity Index, an innovative environmental evaluation tool for agricultural production systems.

Highlights • Fast and robust assessment of ecosystem integrity in an Index. • Integrate qualitative and quantitative measures in agroecosystem evaluation. • Numeric and visual results of the assessment. • Correlation between index values and other environmental variables. Abstract Environmental assessment of agricultural production systems is an increasing concern within the international community. When evaluation involves biodiversity indicators, as richness or diversity in certain taxa or their roles in ecosystems, the participation of specialists is required to identify, classify and interpret diversity at the level of species, communities and ecosystems. Due to costs and time demand, this can be an important obstacle when a widespread use of these assessments is needed to contribute to policy making and evaluation, field management decision-making or implementation of a specific technology. We developed a new index that combines different environmental characteristics which can be evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively with a basic training, can be implemented quickly and each index component is directly associated with key aspects for the assessment of ecosystem capacity to sustain wildlife and ecosystem services. The Ecosystem Integrity Index (EII) evaluates the status of a specific ecosystem under agricultural use, referred to an optimal condition that must be established for the ecoregion. Its application involves a qualitative and quantitative visual evaluation considering four components: vegetation structure, plant species, soil and riparian areas. Each component is valued on a 0–5 scale, where 5 is the best possible condition. EII is a simple and robust tool for evaluating and monitoring integrity of agroecosystems and the primary validation demonstrates good correlation with other environmental variables such as wildlife diversity and soil organic carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]