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Katarina Hedlund

Katarina Hedlund

Professor

Katarina Hedlund

Roadmap for valuing soil ecosystem services to inform multi-level decision-making in agriculture

Author

  • Mark V. Brady
  • Jordan Hristov
  • Fredrik Wilhelmsson
  • Katarina Hedlund

Summary, in English

Agricultural soils contribute to human welfare through their generation of manifold ecosystem services such as food security, water quality and climate regulation, but these are degraded by common farming practices. We have developed a roadmap for evaluating the contribution of both private- and public-good ecosystem services generated by agricultural soils to societal welfare. The approach considers the needs of decision-makers at different levels, from farmers to policy-makers. This we achieve through combining production functions-to quantify the impacts of alternative management practices on agricultural productivity and soil ecosystem services-with non-market valuation of changes in public-good ecosystem services and benefit-cost analysis. The results show that the net present value to society of implementing soil-friendly measures are substantial, but negative for farmers in our study region. Although we apply our roadmap to an intensive farming region in Sweden, we believe our results have broad applicability, because farmers do not usually account for the value of public-good ecosystem services. We therefore conclude that market outcomes are not likely to be generating optimal levels of soil ecosystem services from society's perspective. Innovative governance institutions are needed to resolve this market failure to safeguard the welfare of future generations.

Department/s

  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • AgriFood Economics Centre, SLU
  • Soil Ecology
  • Biodiversity

Publishing year

2019-10-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Sustainability (Switzerland)

Volume

11

Issue

19

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

MDPI AG

Topic

  • Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use

Keywords

  • Benefit-cost analysis
  • Climate change
  • Food security
  • Natural capital
  • Nutrient retention
  • Policy
  • Soil carbon
  • Valuation

Status

Published

Research group

  • Soil Ecology

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2071-1050