| 1. |
- Hasler, Berit, et al.
(author)
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Farmers’ preferences for nutrient and climate-related agri-environmental schemes : A cross-country comparison
- 2019
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In: Ambio. - : Springer. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48:11, s. 1290-1303
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We use data from a survey of 2439 farmers in 5 countries around the Baltic Sea (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland and Sweden) to investigate their preferences for adopting agricultural practices aimed at reducing nutrient leaching and greenhouse gas emissions. The measures considered are set-aside, catch crops and reduced fertilization. Contracts vary with respect to the area enrolled, contract length, possibility of premature termination, availability of professional advice and compensation. We quantitatively describe farmers’ preferences in terms of their willingness-to-accept compensation for specific attributes of these contracts, if implemented. The results vary substantially between farm types (farmers’ characteristics) and between the 5 countries, and support differentiation of contract obligations and payments to improve the uptake of AgriEnvironmental Schemes. The results can be readily used to improve the design of country-specific nutrient reduction policies, in accordance with the next Common Agricultural Policy.
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| 2. |
- Hasler, Berit, et al.
(author)
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Sustainable ecosystem governance under changing climate and land use : An introduction
- 2019
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In: Ambio. - : Springer Netherlands. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48, s. 1235-1239
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Combatting eutrophication is currently a major challenge for policy makers in the Baltic Sea region, and it is likely to remain so in the decades to come. Although total nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea have recently declined, the gap between current loadings and those required to ensure the desired status is still substantial (Reusch et al. 2018). This Special Issue is dedicated to research that helps inform how the eutrophication challenge might best be addressed by improving our understanding of technological constraints, societal drivers of change, land uses, environmental policies, and innovative governance with stakeholder involvement. These issues are important for the current generation and those to come and are issues we must address in order to succeed in reducing nutrient loads to the desired levels to gradually achieve the desired good environmental status of the Baltic Sea. Currently, we witness a new era of water policies across the entire Baltic Sea region. Our changing climate is impacting on precipitation and runoff, and is also the reason why new EU climate policies seek to tie carbon sinks more visibly to carbon sources. Both these aspects have repercussions for water policies. Thus, solving eutrophication challenges requires sharpening of existing policies and instruments, as well as creating new insights and governance approaches with broad stakeholder involvement in a changing environment. In order to design coherent water and climate policies, and target and implement those policies more efficiently, policy makers need to combine new insights regarding the inhabitants in the region, the catchments, and the Baltic Sea itself. Such insights can be expected from soil scientists, agronomists, hydrogeologists, marine ecologists, economists, and social and policy scientists. What is needed is on the one hand effectively targeted governance at appropriate spatial and temporal scales, adapted to differing interests and motivations of citizens living around the Baltic Sea, and on the other hand fine tuning and co-designing of policies at local, national, Baltic Sea regional and EU level. This Special Issue brings together recent research from four BONUS-funded projects—BONUS BALTICAPP, BONUS GO4BALTIC, BONUS MIRACLE and BONUS SOILS2SEA—that comprised part of the ‘Viable Ecosystem’ and ‘Sustainable Ecosystem Services’ BONUS research programmes. The projects addressed these common concerns through somewhat different, but inter-related, themes. Key messages emphasized and discussed in the research papers of this Special Issue are summarized under four interlinked themes: Scenarios for the future, Policies and ecosystem services in water governance, Novel approaches for managing nutrients, and Advanced modelling from field level to the entire Baltic Sea region.
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| 3. |
- Jansson, Torbjörn, et al.
(author)
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Baltic Sea eutrophication status is not improved by the first pillar of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy
- 2019
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In: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-3798 .- 1436-378X. ; 19:8, s. 2465-2476
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Agriculture is an important source of nitrogen and phosphorous loads to the Baltic Sea. We study how the European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and in particular how its first pillar, containing most of the budget and the decoupled farm payments, affects eutrophication. To aid our study, we use three simulation models, covering the agricultural sector in the EU, a hydrological nutrient flow model and a model of eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. We compute changes in key eutrophication indicators in a business-as-usual baseline and in a hypothetical situation where the first pillar of the CAP, containing the direct payments, greening and accompanying measures, is not present. Comparing the outcomes, we find that in the scenario without the first pillar, production and agricultural land use is lower, while yields and fertiliser use per hectare are higher, causing less nitrogen and phosphorous loads (0.5 to 4% depending on the basin) and less eutrophication in the Baltic Sea as net effect. We therefore conclude that the policies of the first pillar of the CAP contribute to increased eutrophication in the Baltic Sea.
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| 4. |
- Jansson, Torbjörn, et al.
(author)
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Can investments in manure technology reduce nutrient leakage to the Baltic Sea?
- 2019
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In: Ambio. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48:11, s. 1264-1277
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this study, quantitative models of the agricultural sector and nutrient transport and cycling are used to analyse the impacts in the Baltic Sea of replacing the current Greening measures of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy with a package of investments in manure handling. The investments aim at improving nutrient utilization and reducing nitrogen leaching, based on the assumption that lagging farms and regions can catch up with observed good practice. Our results indicate that such investments could reduce nitrogen surpluses in agriculture by 18% and nitrogen concentrations in the Baltic Sea by 1 to 9% depending on the basin. The Greening measures, in contrast, are found to actually increase nitrogen leaching.
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| 5. |
- Ollikainen, Markku, et al.
(author)
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Toward the Baltic Sea Socioeconomic Action Plan
- 2019
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In: Ambio. - : Springer. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48:11, s. 1377-1388
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper analyzes the main weaknesses and key avenues for improvement of nutrient policies in the Baltic Sea region. HELCOM's Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), accepted by the Baltic Sea countries in 2007, was based on an innovative ecological modeling of the Baltic Sea environment and addressed the impact of the combination of riverine loading and transfer of nutrients on the ecological status of the sea and its sub-basins. We argue, however, that the assigned country-specific targets of nutrient loading do not reach the same level of sophistication, because they are not based on careful economic and policy analysis. We show an increasing gap between the state-of-the-art policy alternatives and the existing command-and-control-based approaches to the protection of the Baltic Sea environment and outline the most important steps for a Baltic Sea Socioeconomic Action Plan. It is time to raise the socioeconomic design of nutrient policies to the same level of sophistication as the ecological foundations of the BSAP.
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