CLEAR

Given increasing attention on the importance of agrobiodiversity in agricultural landscapes, we identify integrative landscape-level planning as a promising approach to incentivize more widespread adoption of agro-ecological measures. Our project aims to develop an interdisciplinary methodology to facilitate data-based collaborative landscape planning, with the goal of characterizing agrobiodiversity and enhancing resilience and multifunctionality across farms, at a landscape level. This approach prioritizes the integration of agrienvironmental and socio-economic perspectives, and will be grounded in site-specific data representing five regional case-studies in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Scotland. For the first step, we propose to carry out an evaluation of promising diversification practices across different EU contexts, with specific focus on enhancement of agrobiodiversity at farm / landscape scales. Practices will be selected to represent the range and distribution of agricultural management approaches applicable in each case study region, e.g. agroforestry establishment, hedgerow planting & management, crop rotation, crop-livestock integration, or the establishment of flower strips along field margins. We will then blend participatory methods and ground-truthed data to identify and validate relevant and measurable agrobiodiversity indicators, selected to facilitate performance assessments of evaluated farming practices on agrobiodiversity and related ecosystem functions/services (e.g., carbon sequestration, economic profitability, nutrition). The multifunctionality of different practices will be evaluated through identification of trade-offs and synergies between different indicators. Finally, the project will assess opportunities for enhanced valorisation and incentivization of market- or policy-based collaborative approaches at the landscape scale. Expected outcomes will include scientific publications, technical support material (e.g., for farm extension networks), and stakeholderrelevant policy recommendations. Ultimately the proposed research will lead to concrete policy recommendations which will support collaborative planning of resilient agricultural landscapes that reconcile biodiversity conservation and food security under global change.