DEVELOPING AGRICULTURAL LAND-USE STRATEGIES APPROPRIATE TO NATURE CONSERVATION GOALS AND ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a method that includes explici t aims of both nature conservation and environmental protection in the management strategies of agricultural systems. Following methods of l and use planning and farming systems analysis a decision support syste m was developed to simulate sire specific cropping practices and asses s the impacts on natural resources. The optimization of farm income un der defined restrictions of nature conservation and environmental prot ection completes the decision support system. The paper presents the g eneral modelling approach and elaborates as an example the modelling o f cropping practices. Cropping systems are modified to protect amphibi ans as a typical group of endangered organisms in agricultural landsca pes. Evaluation tools are presented to assess the impact of defined pr oduction techniques on indicators of sustainable land use. The indicat ors are nitrate leaching, impact of land use on amphibians and gross m argin of the crop production. The implementation of the evaluation too ls on the land use of a model farm in northeast Germany is presented. Spatial allocation of target values is presented for one crop as an ex ample. The site specific comparative advantages of the different cropp ing systems with regard to the indicators provide a basis for integrat ion and optimization of a set of goals into land use practices on a la rger scale, e.g., an agricultural landscape. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.