Field: Agro-ecology

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Optimizing ecological benefits and economic costs of field margins for conservation planning

Advisors: Assistant Professor Assaf Shwartz and Prof. Yohay Carmel

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Development in the past few decades has caused a major decline in biodiversity worldwide, and more species are expected to become extinct in the near future. Conservation efforts so far focused on increasing nature-reserves and improving their quality but sufficient increase is challenging and may not result in the desired increase in biodiversity because of geographic and economic biases in reserve location and size. Instead, multifunctional landscapes with environment-friendly agriculture may support both food-production and conservation goals, but may cause loses in yield and, in turn, economic costs.

In our research we examine the trade-offs that emerge from the multifunctional-landscapes approach focusing on field margins management.

 

Our case-study area is located in Emek-Harod valley in Israel, an agricultural area with small semi-natural patches that separates two important ecoregions in Israel (Galillee and the Shomron). The research combines an ecological survey designed to evaluate the ecological value of different land-uses in the valley with field-level manipulation designed to evaluate the costs of leaving uncultivated field-margins.

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The results of these two evaluations will be combined into a spatially-explicit model to select the planning alternatives that will maximize the ecological benefits and minimize the costs for the farmers. Our research will have new insights about better planning of agricultural area, which are crucial for promoting good policy-practices in this field.