Quantifying spatial non-stationarity in the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ecosystem services: An example in the New Zealand hill country.

Knowing how landscape structure affects the provision of ecosystem services (ES) is an important first step toward better landscape planning. Because landscape structure is often heterogenous across space, modelling the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ES must account for spatial non-stationarity. This paper examines the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ES using a hill country and steep-land case farm in New Zealand. Indicators derived from land cover and topographical data such as Largest Patch Index (LPI), Contrast Class Edge (CCE), Edge Density (ED), and Terrain slope (SLOPE) were used to examine the landscape's structure and pattern. Measures of pasture productivity, soil erosion control, and water supply were derived with InVEST tools and spatial analysis in a GIS. Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) was used to evaluate the relationship between indicators of landscape structure and the provisioning of ES. Other regression models, including Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), were carried out to evaluate the performance of MGWR. Results showed that landscape patterns significantly affect the supply of all mapped ES, and this varies across the landscape, dependent on the pattern of topographical features and land cover pattern and structure. MWGR outperformed other OLS and GWR in terms of explanatory power of the ES determinants and had a better ability to deal with the presence of spatial autocorrelation. Spatially and quantitatively detailed variations of the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ES provide a scientific basis to inform the design of sustainable multifunctional landscapes. Information derived from this analysis can be used for spatial planning of farmed landscapes to promote multiple ES which meet multiple sustainable development objectives.

Farming in a changing environment: Increasing biodiversity on farm for the supply of multiple ecosystem services.

Among natural resources, soils continue to be poorly represented in ecosystem services frameworks and decision-making processes. Similarly, the supply of multiple ecosystem services from agro-ecosystems and trade-offs between services remains under-researched. As a consequence, it is unclear how and to what extent agriculture can deliver on environmental sustainability, whilst maintaining current levels of profitability. One of the main barriers to implementation of environmental management practices is the perception by the farming industry that environmental gains come at a cost and impact negatively on profitability. Therefore, we need to demonstrate that inclusion of all the natural resources on farm in farm system design and management offers flexibility for the farm system and insures improved sustainability and greater resilience. In this study, an ecosystem approach was paired with a new generation farm system optimisation model and the inclusion of natural resources beyond land, especially biodiversity, to explore farm system design, and report on ecosystem services beyond food and fibre from different parts of the farm. The approach was tested on a sheep and beef farm in Waikato, New Zealand to explore the added benefits of replanting fragile parts of the farm landscape for soil and biodiversity enhancement on reduced emissions to air and water, and trade-offs between different services and farm profitability. The approach showed that it is possible to define and include ecological boundaries within which resources can be managed to deliver multiple benefits ranging from increased per hectare profitability to decreased environmental footprints. This is a feature analytical farm system frameworks will require in the future. The research also highlighted the importance of developing our understanding of the relationship between the condition and function of indigenous biodiversity fragments and adjacent pastoral ecosystems and their contribution to economic, environmental, cultural and social outcomes on and beyond the farm.

Nitrogen Cycling from Increased Soil Organic Carbon Contributes Both Positively and Negatively to Ecosystem Services in Wheat Agro-Ecosystems.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important and manageable property of soils that impacts on multiple ecosystem services through its effect on soil processes such as nitrogen (N) cycling and soil physical properties. There is considerable interest in increasing SOC concentration in agro-ecosystems worldwide. In some agro-ecosystems, increased SOC has been found to enhance the provision of ecosystem services such as the provision of food. However, increased SOC may increase the environmental footprint of some agro-ecosystems, for example by increasing nitrous oxide emissions. Given this uncertainty, progress is needed in quantifying the impact of increased SOC concentration on agro-ecosystems. Increased SOC concentration affects both N cycling and soil physical properties (i.e., water holding capacity). Thus, the aim of this study was to quantify the contribution, both positive and negative, of increased SOC concentration on ecosystem services provided by wheat agro-ecosystems. We used the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) to represent the effect of increased SOC concentration on N cycling and soil physical properties, and used model outputs as proxies for multiple ecosystem services from wheat production agro-ecosystems at seven locations around the world. Under increased SOC, we found that N cycling had a larger effect on a range of ecosystem services (food provision, filtering of N, and nitrous oxide regulation) than soil physical properties. We predicted that food provision in these agro-ecosystems could be significantly increased by increased SOC concentration when N supply is limiting. Conversely, we predicted no significant benefit to food production from increasing SOC when soil N supply (from fertiliser and soil N stocks) is not limiting. The effect of increasing SOC on N cycling also led to significantly higher nitrous oxide emissions, although the relative increase was small. We also found that N losses via deep drainage were minimally affected by increased SOC in the dryland agro-ecosystems studied, but increased in the irrigated agro-ecosystem. Therefore, we show that under increased SOC concentration, N cycling contributes both positively and negatively to ecosystem services depending on supply, while the effects on soil physical properties are negligible.