Multi-criteria tools for the assessment and implementation of geographically targeted measures to mitigate nutrient losses and adapt to climate change - examples from Denmark

Abstract

Like most livestock dense agricultural areas in North-Western Europe, the Danish macsur.eu study site around Norsminde Fjord, and Danish livestock agriculture in general, have significant problems with nutrient losses and greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, challenging policy targets have been set for the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus losses as defined in the EU Nitrates and Water Framework Directives, and in action plans for related reductions in greenhouse gasses. Climate change, with expected more winter rain and higher temperatures, potentially makes this problem worse, and mitigation options are urgently needed.The present paper presents a suite of tools for the assessment of mitigation measure implementation to deal with this nutrient loss, greenhouse gas emission and climate adaption problems. In common for the studies presented are the integration of geographically targeted measures at the landscape level and experiences with stakeholder interactions. This also include multi-criteria assessment of the various effects of measures. Especially, the case of buffer strips as a geographically targeted measure is discussed, based on findings from the www.Buffertech.dk research project, and as one of the measures in the www.dNmark.org research alliance, landscape level impact assessment model presented. Finally, these results are discussed in the context of the www.macsur.eu joint programming research in livestock systems (LIVE-M) and in relation to the specific MACSUR case studies in Denmark and other European countries.