Post by Amelie Kreuzer

My first paper is published 🎉 🔎 We examined the potential of agricultural land for arable farming and grassland use in Switzerland in a GIS analysis, under the premise that agricultural land use should align with the biophysical and environmental capacity of each location. An iterative co-design process with scientists and public authorities was conducted to elaborate 3 scenarios for agricultural transformation. We progressively incorporated biophysical constraints (soil, climate, and topography) and environmental constraints (soil loss and eutrophication due to risk of erosion), as well as GHG emissions from drained organic soils. ❗ We could show that in the most restrictive scenario, the share between arable land (40%) and grassland (60%) resembles the current distribution (46%, respectively 54%). ‼️ The scenarios also revealed significant spatial shifts between arable land and grassland at the local level: only two-thirds of today’s arable land areas match their natural site conditions. 👏 The evidence from this study underscores the critical importance of site-adapted transitions of agricultural land use and that site-specific land use analyses are essential for guiding effective land use planning and policy advice to support the development of targeted and sustainable land use strategies. Thanks to the co-authors Felix Herzog, Daniel Bretscher, Pierluigi Calanca, Anna Edlinger, Anina Gilgen, Olivier Heller, Annelie Holzkämper, Sonja Keel, Julian Klein, Dr. Lutz Merbold, Chloé Wüst, Ivo Strahm and Sonja Kay 📖 Want to know more? Check out the paper here: https://lnkd.in/eW6Snkza