Corresponding author: Ivo Vinogradovs (
Academic editor: Joachim Maes
The area covered by low-input agroecosystems (e.g. semi-natural and permanent grasslands) in Europe has considerably decreased throughout the last century. To support more sustainable management practices and to promote biodiversity and ecosystem service values of such agroecosystems, a decision support tool was developed. The tool aims to enhance the implementation of ecosystem services and address the challenge of their integration into spatial planning.
The Viva Grass tool aims to enhance the maintenance of ecosystem services delivered by low-input agroecosystems. It does so by providing spatially-explicit decision support for land-use planning and sustainable management of agroecosystems. The Viva Grass tool is a multi-criteria decision analysis tool for integrated planning. It is designed for farmers, spatial planners and policy-makers to support decisions for management of agroecosystems. The tool has been tested to assess spatial planning in eight case studies across the Baltic States.
Ecosystem services (ES) are acknowledged as an important concept to support land-use decision making. They provide a holistic view on interactions between nature and humans and hold the potential to address conflicts and synergies between environmental and socio-economic goals. The ecosystem service concept offers a comprehensive framework for trade-off analysis, addressing compromises between competing land usesand can facilitate planning and development decisions across sectors, scales and administrative boundaries (
This study presents the Viva Grass tool aimed to create a simple decision-support system, which allows assessment of four provisioning ES (cultivated crops, reared animals and their outputs, fodder, biomass-bassed energy sources and herbs for medicine) and eight regulation and maintanance ES (bioremediation by micro-organisms, plants and animals, filtration/storage/accumulation by ecosystems, control of (water) erosion rates, pollination and seed dispersal, maintaining habitats for plant and animal nursery, weathering process, chemical condition of freshwaters, global climate regulations) and four cultural ES (physical and experiental interactions, educational, cultural heritage and aesthetics) and their change under various scenarios in agroecosystems (
Case studies (Fig.
The Viva Grass tool operates at two scales – site scale for mapping and assessing ES potential and landscape scale to elaborate decision support. At the site scale, the assessment is carried out for a basic agro-ecological unit – field or plot, which is defined as a continuous area with identical land use where the actual management decision is applied (
The Viva Grass tool is based on an ArcGIS Enterprise platform. Data is stored in a common spatial database (PostgreSQL) and published as GIS services (maps). Web-based tool modules/applications are constructed using the ArcGIS Web application builder. Additional application widgets were developed to fulfil custom requirements (Fig.
Cultural ES were not included in the matrix valuation as they are explicitly, i.e. distinctively, connected to their service providing areas (SPA) and were assessed through evaluation of criteria created by an expert panel, for example, value of physical and experiental interactions were estimated from the location of the SPA unit in relation to such landscape features as rural recreational enterprises, watching towers, tourist trails, hunting clubs, camping sites and social gathering sites (
Risk of abandonment was created as a composite indicator consisting of a sum of factors like land quality, field size, accessibility and distance to farms. Factors were chosen, based on results revealed in previous studies (
Homepage:
Platform: ArcGIS Enterprise
Programming language: Python, Javascript, HTML, .NET
Operational system: Windows Server
Interface language: English
Service endpoint:
Creative Commons Public Domain Waiver (CC-Zero)
The Viva Grass Viewer is a basic module of the Viva Grass tool that is accessible to the general public. It aims to present results of mapping and assessment of the potential of ES, as well the grouping of ES in bundles and interaction amongst ES in agroecosystems. The Viva Grass viewer was implemented for informative and educational purposes, where the user is able to become acquainted with the ES approach, the spatial representation of basic logic behind assessment of ES and the spatial interaction between ES. Contextual data layers available in the Viva Grass Viewer are farmland land use, the potential of selected ES, bundles and trade-offs of ES potential and cold/hot spots of ES potential. The default view (Fig.
The Viva Grass Bio-energy decision support system was developed as a tool for assessing grass-based energy resources (Fig.
The Viva Grass Planner is a decision support system designed to implementthe ES concept for spatial planning. The Viva Grass Planner is accessible for registered users; registration is carried out by the system administrator. The Viva Grass Planner consists of two basic sub-modules designed to carry out prioritisation and classification functions, subsequent representation of the results in a map and to provide the possibility to export processed data. Prioritisation is performed by applying Multi-Criteria Decision Support (MCDS) – an accepted scheme for supporting complex decision-making situations with multiple and often conflicting objectives that stakeholders groups and/or researchers value differently (
All Viva Grass tool modules were tested and improved in case studies through stakeholder engagement and, based on that, the beta version was developed. Later, the tool was tested in regional workshops in all three countries; all together 150 practitioners in various fields (spatial planning, agricultural consultancy, farmers, researchers) participated in seven all-day workshops. The entire populations of spatial planners and agriculture planners in the respective regions were approached and all who could come to the training sessions participated. Some interested students and farmers participated as well. During the workshops, participants were introduced to the concept of ES and its application in different fields. In the second part of the workshop, participants were introduced to the main functionalities of the Viva Grass tool and how the main results were generated for case studies. Participants were introduced to all modules of the tool and were familiarised with working and weighting different criteria. They developed, in small groups, preliminary case studies for their own localities, discussed weights and assessed the suitability of the tool to support decisions in their cases. Participants were assisted by researchers, who supported implementation of tool functionalities to local cases. After the workshop, participants filled in reports in which they expressed their opinion on the tool’s applicability in their field of activity, its advantages and disadvantages, as well stated their suggestions for further improvement of the Viva Grass tool. These comments were partially incorporated into the final version of the tool.
The Viva Grass Viewer was evaluated as the most usable of the modules (Fig.
The Viva Grass Planner was tested in the Cēsis Municipality case study. The aim was to support landscape management planning at the municipality level. Since 56% of the rural area in the Cēsis Municipality is covered by forest, maintenance of grasslands, as well as removal of shrub in abandoned agriculture land, are essential to preserve the characteristics of the mosaic landscape. The prioritisation model, based on MCDS, was applied to select sites for landscape maintenance or restoration measures. The criteria for prioritisation included the value of four cultural services (recreational, educational, cultural heritage and aesthetic), as well as ecological value (based on the habitats bundle – herbs for medicine, maintaining habitats, global climate regulation, pollination and seed dispersal) (Table
This work was supported by LIFE Viva Grass - Integrated planning tool to ensure viability of grasslands, project (LIFE13 ENV/LT/000189).
A database system set up in each EU member state to administer and control direct payments.
An IT system based on aerial photographs of agricultural parcels used to check payments made under CAP.
Habitats under protection by Habitats Directive (more formally known as Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora).
Case studies.
Conceptual scheme of Viva Grass Tool.
Default view of the Viva Grass Viewer.
Viva Grass Bio-energy module displaying potential gross calorific value and heating plants and demands.
Multi-criteria decision support workflow (adapted from
Screenshot of results of weighting the criteria for landscape management in Viva Grass Planner in Cēsis case study. User defined weights (upper left), legend of ranges of results based on natural brakes (middle left), map of management priority with individual score for each field (map window).
Valued usefulness of Viva Grass Tool modules by workshop participants
Prioritisation scheme for landscape planning in Cēsis case study showing workflow (consecutive steps from left to right) for decision support: defining criteria, assigning weights, arranging weighting results, adding additional values (risk index) for classifying priorities of management and assigning management action.
The results of landscape management prioritizsation in the Cēsis Municipality showing spatial distribution farmland management priority classes. The highest priority class (1st priority) calls for intensive restoration management (removal of shrubs and Sosnowski's hogweed), 2nd priority class calls for medium restoration measures (i.e. removal of Sosnowski's hogweed from the neighbouring territories - ditches, forest edges), 3rd priority class calls for maintenance practices (i.e. cutting grass more than once a year), lowest categories (4th and 5th priorities) call for monitoring of maintenance actions (i.e. yearly monitoring of management practices in situ or tracking of IACS data).
GN planning scheme showing workflow (consecutive steps from left to right) for decision support: defining criteria, assigning weights, arranging weighting results and assigning selection for scenario building .
Three consecutive scenarios of grassland inclusion in Green network of Lääne County, Estonia: (A) Scenario 1: bare minimum - only grasslands belonging to "habitats" bundle (i.e. displaying high or very high values for such ES as maintaining habitats for plant and animal nursery, pollination and seed dispersal, global climate regulations and herbs for medicine) are included in GN, (B) Scenario 2: medium ecological coherence - grasslands from "habitats bundle" and grasslands containing protected species are included in GN, (C) Scenario 3: High ecological coherence - grasslands from habitat bundle, grasslands containing protected species and grasslands form "soil" bundle (displaying high or very high values for such ES as bioremediation by micro-organisms, plants and animals, filtration/storage/accumulation by ecosystems, control of (water) erosion rates and chemical condition of freshwaters) are included in GN.
Description of case studies.
Case studies | Nr. in Fig. 1 | Planning level | Area (km2) | Description |
Lääne County | 1 | Regional | 2413.8 | Most of the farmland is permanent grassland. Large share of semi-natural grasslands with high proportion of coastal meadows and reed-beds. |
Saaremaa Municipality | 2 | Regional | 2703.9 | Municipality is an island that has a mosaic landscape with a high share of semi-natural grasslands, mainly alvars, coastal meadows and wooded meadows and pastures. |
Kurese Farm | 3 | Site | 1.3 | Alvars on thin limestone soils, contains a wide variety of cultural heritage and traditional landscape elements, such as stone walls, burial sites, old roads, limestone quarries and old farmhouses. |
Cēsis Municipality | 4 | Local | 171.7 | Diverse mosaic landscape, undulated relief, dominating agricultural land use is grasslands, but very low share of semi-natural grasslands. |
Kalnāji Farm | 5 | Site | 1.0 | Farm in transition from high to low-input farming, with high share of restored previously-abandoned farmland |
Silute Municipality | 6 | Regional | 1706.4 | Nemunas river delta, polder landscape with high share of semi-natural grasslands important for bird migration. |
Dubysa Regional Park | 7 | Local | 106.2 | Protected area of river valley surrounded by intensive agriculture lands with high share of semi-natural grasslands. |
Pavilniai Regional Park | 8 | Local | 21.8 | Area is situated within the city on intense erosion relief alongside river valley. Most of the territory is covered by forest, low share, but high ecological value grasslands |
Functionalities of the Viva Grass tool modules.
Functionalities | |||||||||
Tool modules | Land use (agricultural) | ES Assessment | ES bundles | ES Cold /hot spots | Biomass, bioenergy potential | Management recommen-dations | Prioritisation, classification | Export map as PDF | Edit, upload, download data |
Viva Grass Viewer | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||
Viva Grass Bio-energy | X | X | X | X | |||||
Viva Grass Planner | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
Criteria identified and mapped for landscape planning in Cēsis case study.
Criteria | Type | Description |
Physical and experiential interactions | Cultural ES | Vicinity to recreational objects and territories |
Educational value | Cultural ES | Vicinity to educational objects and territories |
Cultural heritage value | Cultural ES | Vicinity to cultural heritage objects and territories |
Landscape aesthetics value | Cultural ES | Selected landscape features (openness of landscape, relief undulation, vicinity to water bodies and streams, character of land use and character of surrounding land use |
Ecological value | Aggregated ES values | Average value of ES in “Habitats” bundle |
Risk of farmland abandonment | Composite indicator | Agro-ecological qualities of farmland, vicinity to farms, roads and settlements |
Risk of Hogweed Sosnowsky invasion | Composite indicator | Vicinity to invaded sites, position in seeding corridor (streams, roads) |
Criteria identified and mapped for Green Network planning module.
Criteria | Type | Description |
Pollination and seed dispersal | Regulating ES | Diversity and occurrence of insect pollinators |
Maintaining habitats for plant and animal nursery | Regulating ES | Number of species |
Global climate regulation | Regulating ES | Carbon sequestration in vegetation and soils |
Control of erosion rates | Regulating ES | Amount of soil retained |
Chemical conditions of freshwaters | Regulating ES | Absorption of nutrients |
Bio-remediation | Regulating ES | Soil capacity to enhance bio-remediation |
Filtration-storage accumulation | Regulating ES | Soil capacity to store/accumulate nutrients |
Protected species distribution | Location factor | Presence of protected species in grassland |