Abstract.A comprehensive assessment of policy impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural soils requires careful consideration of both socio-economic aspects and the environmental heterogeneity of the landscape. We developed a modelling framework that links the large-scale economic model for agriculture CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regional Impact assessment) with the biogeochemistry model DNDC (DeNitrification DeComposition) to simulate GHG fluxes, carbon stock changes and the nitrogen budget of agricultural soils in Europe. The framework allows the ex-ante simulation of agricultural or agri-environmental policy impacts on a wide range of environmental problems such as climate change (GHG emissions), air pollution and groundwater pollution. Those environmental impacts can be analyzed in the context of economic and social indicators as calculated by the economic model. The methodology consists of four steps: (i) definition of appropriate calculation units that can be considered as homogeneous in terms of economic behaviour and environmental response; (ii) downscaling of regional agricultural statistics and farm management information from a CAPRI simulation run into the spatial calculation units; (iii) designing environmental model scenarios and model runs; and finally (iv) aggregating results for interpretation. We show the first results of the nitrogen budget in croplands in fourteen countries of the European Union and discuss possibilities to improve the detailed assessment of nitrogen and carbon fluxes from European arable soils.

International audienceSemi-natural vegetation in agricultural land mainly includes extensively managed grasslands, agro-forestry areas and all vegetated features that are not used for crop production, such as hedgerows, buffer strips, field margins and woodlots. Semi-natural vegetation plays a major role in the supply of ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control, water quality control and erosion prevention. The efficiency of ecosystem services for agriculture should therefore depend upon the spatial distribution of semi-natural vegetation. In spite of such a relevance, semi-natural vegetation in agricultural land has never been mapped at the European scale. Therefore, we report here the first 1- km resolution map of semi-natural vegetation in agricultural land at the European Union scale. For that, we use an innovative convergence-of-evidence mapping method. We also present an assessment and a classification of the relation between semi-natural vegetation and ecosystem service supply at the regional scale. The major improvements in our mapping method are the following: (1) both large and small patches of perennial vegetation are detected in fine-resolution satellite images by incorporating the spectral rule-based preliminary classifier, (2) the identification of semi-natural grassland is enhanced, (3) European ancillary maps are used to help mapping of woody vegetation and identification of agro-ecosystems. Validation shows that our output map is 34.3 % more accurate than pre-existing components. In addition, results show that regulating ecosystem services increase with the abundance of semi-natural vegetation in agricultural lands with a coefficient R2 of 0.67. The results also show no specific trend in relation to provisioning ecosystem services. These findings mean that semi-natural vegetation is usually beneficial for regulating services, whereas the relation to provisioning services is strictly context-dependent. Overall our study supports greening measures design in the frame of the Common Agricultural Policy for 2014–2020. Results also will help to identify green infrastructure elements and priority areas for ecological restoration

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Abstract. For the comprehensive assessment of the policy impact on greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils both socio-economic aspects and the environmental heterogeneity of the landscape are important factors that must be considered. We developed a modelling framework that links the large-scale economic model for agriculture CAPRI with the bio-geochemistry model DNDC to simulate greenhouse gas fluxes, carbon stock changes and the nitrogen budget of agricultural soils in Europe. The framework allows the ex-ante simulation of agricultural or agri-environmental policy impacts on wide range of environmental problems such as climate change (greenhouse gas emissions), air pollution and groundwater pollution. Those environmental impacts can be analysed in the context of economic and social indicators as calculated by the economic model. The methodology consists in four steps (i) the definition of appropriate calculation units that can be considered as homogeneous in terms of economic behaviour and environmental response; (ii) downscaling of regional agricultural statistics and farm management information from a CAPRI simulation run into the spatial calculation units; (iii) setting up of environmental model scenarios and model runs; and finally (iv) aggregating results for interpretation. We show first results of the nitrogen budget in cropland for the area of fourteen countries of the European Union. These results, in terms of estimated nitrogen fluxes, must still be considered as illustrative as needs for improvements in input data (e.g. the soil map) and management data (yield estimates) have been identified and will be the focus of future work. Nevertheless, we highlight inter-dependencies between farmer's choices of land uses and the environmental impact of different cultivation systems.