Ex ante assessment of crop rotations focusing on energy crops using a multi-attribute decision-making method
- The cultivation of plants for use as energy resources is an agricultural and industrial sector with potentially synergistic benefits related to protecting the environment and generating income. Against the background of increasing land-use changes and new agricultural approaches to the production of energy crops, we present a method for identifying future-oriented crop rotations that supports both the economic and environmental components of decision-making strategies with respect to agriculture-related policy decisions (regional mission statements). The conflicting aspects of these objectives can be addressed with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multi-attribute decision-making method that was integrated here. Three models are used to generate simulations of the defined objectives over a planning period of 30 years under the current climate scenario and provide input data for the multi-attribute assessment of several crop rotations. Based on the entire evaluation process, dimensionless global priority vectors are used toThe cultivation of plants for use as energy resources is an agricultural and industrial sector with potentially synergistic benefits related to protecting the environment and generating income. Against the background of increasing land-use changes and new agricultural approaches to the production of energy crops, we present a method for identifying future-oriented crop rotations that supports both the economic and environmental components of decision-making strategies with respect to agriculture-related policy decisions (regional mission statements). The conflicting aspects of these objectives can be addressed with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multi-attribute decision-making method that was integrated here. Three models are used to generate simulations of the defined objectives over a planning period of 30 years under the current climate scenario and provide input data for the multi-attribute assessment of several crop rotations. Based on the entire evaluation process, dimensionless global priority vectors are used to indicate how well the crop rotations meet the requirements of the defined mission statement. The method is tested in a municipality in NE Germany. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.…
| Author details: | Andrea Werner, Andreas Werner, Ralf Wieland, Kurt-Christian KersebaumORCiDGND, Wilfried Mirschel, Hans-Peter Ende, Hubert WiggeringORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.03.013 |
| ISSN: | 1470-160X |
| ISSN: | 1872-7034 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Ecological indicators : integrating monitoring, assessment and management |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| Place of publishing: | Amsterdam |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first publication: | 2014 |
| Publication year: | 2014 |
| Release date: | 2017/03/27 |
| Tag: | AHP; Agricultural management; Crop rotation; Energy crops; Ex ante assessment; Indicators; Multi-attribute decision-making; Regional objectives |
| Volume: | 45 |
| Number of pages: | 13 |
| First page: | 110 |
| Last Page: | 122 |
| Funding institution: | Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW); Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Muncheberg, Germany |
| Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Institution name at the time of the publication: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften |
