Suchergebnisse

In the EU Joint-Programming-Initiative: Modelling European Agriculturewith Climate Change for Food Security (MACSUR, LiveM: http://www.macsur.eu/index.php/livestock-modelling) we develop a research frameworkfor the modelling and sustainability assessment of livestock and grasslandbased farming systems at farm and regional scales.Based on results from related research and model development in Denmark,methodologies used for regional scaling, the description of data requirementsand sources, and methods to predict the effect and effectiveness of climate-and environment related policy measures are developed. In this study we present results from farm modelling in a study areaaround Viborg, Western Denmark using the http://www.Farm-N.dk/ model (Env.Pol. 159 3183-3192), including thedistribution of N-surpluses into different types of losses, and a comparisonwith empirical studies of farm nitrogen balances in the Danish study and fiveadditional European landscapes (Biogeosciences 9, 5303–5321). Based on this,methods and development needs for the mapping and uncertainty assessment ofnutrient losses and greenhouse gas emissions are discussed, referring to the presentdevelopment of the Farm-AC model and ongoing scenario studies in e.g. the www.dNmark.org project. In these scenarios, regional-scale policy measures areimplemented via the responses of a range of stakeholders, such as farmers,public interest groups, regulators and politicians. When modelling the outcomeof the policy measures implementation, it is often assumed that stakeholdersrespond as economically rational entities. However, social and cultural factorsare also known to play a role and modelling methods that permit these factorsto be taken into account will also be discussed.

The largest source of ammonia (NH3) emissions to the atmosphere is NH3 from agriculture, the majority of which arise from livestock manure. The NH3 emitted is a threat to human health through the formation of fine particles, causes eutrophication of natural ecosystems and is a loss of fertilizer nitrogen (N). The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTP) and the European Union National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD) sets limits for national NH3 emissions and require the reporting of annual emission inventories to demonstrate compliance. The EMEP/EEA Air Pollutant Emission Inventory Guidebook provides emission factors (EFs) to support inventory compilation. Here we report the development of revised NH3 EFs for livestock housing, anure storage, field-applied manure and excreta deposited during grazing. Data from 276 studies were used with more than 70% of these data from peer reviewed journals, the remaining being from conference proceedings and scientific reports. For most sources, the new EFs are the weighted means of the emissions reported. The empirical ALFAM model was used to develop EFs for field-applied slurry. The standard deviation of the EFs were substantial, due to the breadth of the categories of livestock and management systems and because of variations in manure management and climate. The data collected will be available at http://www.alfam.dk.

The EU-FP7 project AnimalChange (AN Integration of Mitigation and Adaptation options for sustainable Livestock production under climate CHANGE, http://www.animalchange.eu, 2011-2015) addresses mitigation and adaptation options and provides scientific guidance for their integration in sustainable development pathways for livestock production under climate change in Europe, Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The project provides insights, innovations, tools and models for livestock production incorporating socio-economic and environmental (particularly GHG emission) variables. Scenario studies are carried out at scales ranging from animal and pasture, to farm and to region, for given management options. A wide range of livestock production systems is included in the project. The core analytical spine of the project is a series of coupled biophysical and socio-economic models combined with experimentation. This allows exploring future scenarios for the livestock sector under baseline and atmospheric CO2 stabilization scenarios. These scenarios are first constructed and then elaborated and enriched by breakthrough mitigation and adaptation options at field and animal scales, integrated and evaluated at farm scale and finally used to assess policy options and their socio-economic consequences. The modelling results are useful for governments, agricultural and food industry and the agricultural sector (farmers). There are many synergies between the European activities of AnimalChange and those of the LiveM theme of MACSUR, in particular with respect to access to livestock production datasets, dialogue with stakeholders and comparison and integration of grassland and livestock models with crop and socio-economic models in pilot studies at a variety of scales.