A GIS-based Framework To Model Farm And Landscape Scale Indicators For Sustainable Rural Development

Facilitation of sustainable rural development has a high priority on the European Union policy agenda and extensive research on this subject has been started. This paper presents results from the strategic EU research project MEA-scope (www.MEA-scope.org), and the development of a GIS-based framework to model farm and landscape scale indicators for rural sustainability. Problems in scaling information between the farmand the landscape levels in particular are addressed. Both aggregation and disaggregation techniques are needed to convey information between the two levels. This is demonstrated in a case study of (1) landscape level aggregation of farm level information, from statistics and from farming simulation models, and (2) disaggregation of landscape level features such as soil, climate and land use types, for farm level modelling. This interaction between farmand landscape level information sources gives the opportunity for integrated modelling of farm level indicators (e.g. nutrient balances, energy use, farmers age, employment etc.) and landscape level indicators (e.g. groundwater supply, corridors between habitats and population density). The framework developed gives valuable inputs to the discussion of which indicators are valid at farm and landscape level, respectively, and whether they have different interpretations at different scales. Whether the demonstrated aggregation and disaggregation techniques are sufficient in terms of the inclusion of linear, non-linear or other emergent effects of scale, is discussed.

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