Article CC BY 4.0
refereed
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Stakeholder perceptions of agricultural landscape services, biodiversity, and drivers of change in four European case studies

ORCID
0000-0002-5666-2623
Affiliation
Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 1, Tartu, Estonia
Suškevičs, Monika;
ORCID
0000-0003-0874-8630
Affiliation
Institute of Sustainable Economic Development, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, 1180 Vienna, Feistmantelstraße 4, Austria
Karner, Katrin;
GND
1241365105
Affiliation
Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance”, Working Group: Provisioning of Biodiversity in Agricultural Systems, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, Müncheberg, Germany
Bethwell, Claudia;
ORCID
0000-0002-4807-6958
Affiliation
Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, Vienna, Austria
Danzinger, Florian;
ORCID
0000-0003-0531-4407
Affiliation
Agricultural Landscapes and Biodiversity, Agroscope, Reckenholzstrasse 191, Zürich, Switzerland
Kay, Sonja;
ORCID
0000-0002-8654-2112
Affiliation
Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance”, Working Group: Provisioning of Biodiversity in Agricultural Systems, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, Müncheberg, Germany
Nishizawa, Takamasa;
GND
131504991
Affiliation
Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance”, Working Group: Provisioning of Biodiversity in Agricultural Systems, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, Müncheberg, Germany
Schuler, Johannes;
ORCID
0000-0002-8076-7943
Affiliation
Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 1, Tartu, Estonia
Sepp, Kalev;
ORCID
0000-0003-2268-7694
Affiliation
Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 1, Tartu, Estonia
Värnik, Rando;
ORCID
0000-0002-6506-1889
Affiliation
Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance”, Working Group: Provisioning of Biodiversity in Agricultural Systems, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, Müncheberg, Germany
Glemnitz, Michael;
Affiliation
Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 1, Tartu, Estonia
Semm, Maaria;
GND
124244661
ORCID
0000-0002-7638-3867
Affiliation
Thünen Institute of Agricultural Technology, Bundesallee 47, Braunschweig, Germany
Umstätter, Christina;
ORCID
0000-0001-5341-9794
Affiliation
Research Department Climate Resilience, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), P.O. Box 60 12 03, Potsdam, Germany
Conradt, Tobias;
ORCID
0000-0001-9472-4891
Affiliation
Agricultural Landscapes and Biodiversity, Agroscope, Reckenholzstrasse 191, Zürich, Switzerland
Herzog, Felix;
ORCID
0000-0001-9020-7192
Affiliation
Agricultural Landscapes and Biodiversity, Agroscope, Reckenholzstrasse 191, Zürich, Switzerland
Klein, Noëlle;
GND
1250179521
Affiliation
Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, Vienna, Austria
Wrbka, Thomas;
GND
131505041
Affiliation
Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance”, Working Group: Provisioning of Biodiversity in Agricultural Systems, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, Müncheberg, Germany
Zander, Peter;
ORCID
0000-0002-3340-658X
Affiliation
Institute of Sustainable Economic Development, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, 1180 Vienna, Feistmantelstraße 4, Austria
Schönhart, Martin

Many studies have explored farmers’ perspectives on biodiversity and ecosystem services, but fewer qualitative and cross-country comparisons exist. We develop a socio-ecological system to analyse agricultural landscape services, biodiversity, and drivers that have affected these services in recent decades. Via a systematic stakeholder mapping and 49 semi-structured interviews, we identify stakeholder perceptions of this system. We compare the perceptions across four regional case studies (Austria, Estonia, Germany, Switzerland), and two stakeholder groups (land managers and administrators). The case studies share certain commonalities in perceptions (e.g., provisioning and regulating services discussed in all of them) but also show differences (e.g., changes in biodiversity and landscape services more often perceived in the Swiss and German cases, but less in the Austrian and Estonian case studies). Across all case studies, typical land use change can be attributed to multiple drivers of various strengths, with climate change being the most often perceived driver directly affecting landscape services, followed by policies and market-based drivers, which affect services and biodiversity indirectly via land use. Compared to the administrators (e.g., decision-makers, scientists), the managers (e.g., farmers, NGOs) discuss more often the drivers, like various biodiversity and landscape service categories, as well as climate change, markets, and technologies. However, the administrators focus more on cultural services, policies as drivers, and consider more often links between drivers and landscape services and/or biodiversity. Hence, both of the groups’ (administrators and managers) perceptions partly complement each other. Since policy making should be based on the best knowledge of different stakeholder groups, active knowledge exchange between managers and administrators should be supported and outcome considered in decision making. The resulting regional differences in stakeholder perceptions of the drivers and their respective impact on agricultural landscapes suggest that future agricultural policies need regional targeting and the consideration of landscape-specific characteristic.

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