A Geospatial Modelling Approach to Assess the Capability of High-Country Stations in Delivering Ecosystem Services

Abstract

The creation of more sustainable land use strategies is paramount to designing multifunctional agricultural landscapes that allow grasslands to continually deliver multiple ecosystem services. A mapping modelling approach would provide us with a tool for system diagnosis to better assess the value of a landscape and define place-based practices for designing more context-adjusted systems that are in synergy with the complexity of grasslands. To assess the potential capability of a high-country pastoral livestock production system in New Zealand in delivering ecosystem services, this work uses a geospatial model as a decision support tool to identify management practices that enhance grassland health. The model uses national, climatic, soil, and landcover data to assess the agricultural productivity, flood mitigation, C sequestration, erosion, and sediment delivery capacity of a case study high-country station in New Zealand. Model outcomes suggest that the station has the potential for increased agricultural productivity although varying spatially, a high flood mitigation capacity, a high capacity for C sequestration, a moderate risk of erosion, a capacity to reduce sediment delivery to streams, and overall, a low to moderate nitrogen and phosphorus accumulation. Output maps display a spatial visualisation of ecosystem services associated with the landscape topography, soil, and vegetation patterns that allow the identification of neglected areas and planning of best place-based management practices strategies to enhance the health of grasslands.

Seminatural Grasslands: An Emblematic Challenge for Nature Conservation in Protected Areas

“…The next step would be a spatialization of the information by way of vegetation maps at a scale fine enough (1:10,000) to depict grassland-type variability; however, this would be not only a static view but also an arduous task to accomplish in huge areas, as also pointed out by Primi et al (2016) [157]. In this frame, the here-developed Google Earth Engine (GEE) application shows particular usefulness in providing near-real-time data to address conservative grassland management and demonstrates the general trend towards highly technological agriculture and robotic environmental monitoring [166][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176]. Satellite remote sensing is invaluable in this context, offering a cost-efficient, timely, and replicable method for vegetation analysis [31,177].…”

Enhancing Carbon Sequestration: A Systematic Literature Review of Spatial Decision Support Tools

“…The carbon sequestration model identifies areas for potential carbon storage, advising protection or modification for additional storage. It estimates carbon emissions or sequestration, distinguishing among above-ground living biomass, below-ground living biomass, deadwood, litter, and soil carbon, following IPCC tier 1 protocols [86]. Notably, LUCI is built on the Polyscape tool, and due to its restricted access and limited publications, much of the information comes from the Polyscape documentation.…”