10.5061/DRYAD.2547D7WPB
Finch, Tom
0000-0003-1122-8513
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Day, Brett
University of Exeter
Massimino, Dario
British Trust for Ornithology
Redhead, John
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Field, Rob
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Balmford, Andrew
University of Cambridge
Green, Rhys
University of Cambridge
Peach, Will
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Evaluating spatially explicit sharing-sparing scenarios for multiple
environmental outcomes
Dryad
dataset
2020
land sparing
land sharing
global warming potential
diffuse pollution
Recreation
2020-10-12T00:00:00Z
2020-10-12T00:00:00Z
en
27738 bytes
2
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
1. Understanding how to allocate land for the sustainable delivery of
multiple, competing objectives is a major societal challenge. The land
sharing-sparing framework presents a heuristic for understanding the
trade-off between food production and biodiversity conservation by
comparing region-wide land use scenarios which are equivalent in terms of
overall food production. 2. Here, for two contrasting regions of lowland
England (The Fens and Salisbury Plain), we use empirical data and
predictive models to compare a suite of spatially explicit scenarios
reflecting the full range of the sharing-sparing continuum, including
mixed scenarios which combine elements of both sharing and sparing. We
evaluate a range of outcomes (bird populations, global warming potential
(GWP), nitrogen and phosphorus pollution and outdoor recreation), in order
to identify approaches to regional land use planning with the potential to
deliver multiple societal benefits. 3. Land-sharing scenarios (which
reduce the dominance of productive agricultural land in farmed areas and
the area of larger unfarmed areas) result in negative outcomes,
particularly for birds and GWP. In contrast, many land-sparing scenarios
(including mixed scenarios which increase the area of lower-yield farmland
alongside larger unfarmed areas) resulted in improvements in all or most
outcomes, although for recreation and nutrient export differences between
scenarios were modest. 4. Importantly, environmental outcomes also
depended on the spatial arrangement of spared land, the types of natural
or semi-natural habitat promoted on spared land, whether some lower-yield
farmland is delivered alongside larger unfarmed areas, and the overall
region-wide food production target. 5. Policy implications. Our study
suggests that land-sparing strategies which increase the area of natural
and seminatural areas can improve environmental outcomes, despite the
costs associated with high-yield agriculture. However, high-yield
agriculture should not compromise future production or ecosystem services
on spared land, and explicit policies such as certification or payments
for ecosystem services are required to link sustainable high-yield
production to habitat conservation. Our study also highlights the
importance of mitigating projected increases in food demand.
Modelled properties of each land use scenario. See associated manuscript
for full description.
See ReadMe.txt for description of variables