Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2007
Authors
Klaus Mittenzwei Wendy Fjellstad Wenche E. Dramstad Ola Flaten Arnt Kristian Gjertsen Maria Loureiro Sjur Spildo PrestegardAbstract
In recent years the objectives of agricultural policy have shifted from a principal focus on production and income towards agriculture\"s provision of public goods summarized by the term ‘multifunctionality\". Agricultural sector models, which are important tools for policy advice, need to be adjusted in order to maintain their relevance and reliability in accordance with policy changes. This paper investigates the strengths and limitations of incorporating multifunctionality indicators in the agricultural sector model Common Agricultural Policy Regional Impact Analysis (CAPRI) by reviewing the existing literature and incorporating such indicators in the model. Multifunctionality indicators are developed and implemented for four selected aspects of multifunctionality: food security, landscape, environmental concerns and rural viability. By running different policy reform scenarios, it is shown that indicators closely related to the underlying economic variables of the sector model may provide useful to describe the effects of policy reforms on agriculture\"s multifunctionality. However, these indicators do not completely cover the selected aspects of multifunctionality. In order to yield a broader coverage, this paper proposes to strengthen interdisciplinary research by linking agricultural sector models with other model systems like farm-based economical-ecological models, regional economic models or landscape information systems.
2006
Abstract
AR18×18 is an area frame survey of land resources in Norway, methodologically linked to the Lucas survey carried out by Eurostat. The method has been adapted to Norwegian conditions. Data accessible through existing mapping systems and public registers are not collected. On the other hand, the survey is strengthened with a land cover mapping component. The purpose of the survey is to establish an unbiased and accurate land cover and land use statistic providing a description of the state of land resources in Norway. The study will also provide a baseline for future reports regarding changes in land resources
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Anders BrynAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
There is increasing awareness of the need to monitor trends in our constantly changing agricultural landscapes. Monitoring programmes often use remote sensing data and focus on changes in land cover/land use in relation to values such as biodiversity, cultural heritage and recreation.Although a wide range of indicators is in use, landscape aesthetics is a topic that is frequently neglected. Our aim was to determine whether aspects of landscape content and configuration could be used as surrogate measures for visual landscape quality in monitoring programmes based on remote sensing.In this paper, we test whether map-derived indicators of landscape structure from the Norwegian monitoring programme for agricultural landscapes are correlated with visual landscape preferences. Two groups of people participated: (1) locals and (2) non-local students.Using the total dataset, we found significant positive correlations between preferences and spatial metrics, including number of land types, number of patches and land type diversity. In addition, preference scores were high where water was present within the mapped image area, even if the water itself was not visible in the images.When the dataset was split into two groups, we found no significant correlation between the preference scores of the students and locals. Whilst the student group preferred images portraying diverse and heterogeneous landscapes, neither diversity nor heterogeneity was correlated with the preference scores of the locals.We conclude that certain indicators based on spatial structure also have relevance in relation to landscape preferences in agricultural landscapes. However, the finding that different groups of people prefer different types of landscape underlines the need for care when interpreting indicator values
Authors
Rune Halvorsen Økland Harald Bratli Wenche E. Dramstad A. Edvardsen Gunnar Engan Wendy Fjellstad Einar Heegaard Oddvar Pedersen Heidi SolstadAbstract
Knowledge of variation in vascular plant species richness and species composition in modern agricultural landscapes is important for appropriate biodiversity management. From species lists for 2201 land-type patches in 16 1-km2 plots five data sets differing in sampling-unit size from patch to plot were prepared.Variation in each data set was partitioned into seven sources: patch geometry, patch type, geographic location, plot affiliation, habitat diversity, ecological factors, and land-use intensity.Patch species richness was highly predictable (75% of variance explained) by patch area, within-patch heterogeneity and patch type. Plot species richness was, however, not predictable by any explanatory variable, most likely because all studied landscapes contained all main patch types ploughed land, woodland, grassland and other open land and hence had a large core of common species.Patch species composition was explained by variation along major environmental complex gradients but appeared nested to lower degrees in modern than in traditional agricultural landscapes because species-poor parts of the landscape do not contain well-defined subsets of the species pool of species-rich parts.Variation in species composition was scale dependent because the relative importance of specific complex gradients changed with increasing sampling-unit size, and because the amount of randomness in data sets decreased with increasing sampling-unit size. Our results indicate that broad landscape structural changes will have consequences for landscape-scale species richness that are hard or impossible to predict by simple surrogate variables.
Editors
Geir-Harald StrandAbstract
This report describes a methodology for Norwegian reporting under Article 3.3 and Article 3.4 (if elected) of the Kyoto protocol. The proposal is to report Afforestation/Reforestation (AR) and Deforestation (D) under Article 3.3 (mandatory) and Forest management (FM) under Article 3.4 (if elected). The reporting requirements can probably not be fulfilled if Norway also elects Cropland management (CM), Grazing land management (GM) or Revegetation (RV) under Article 3.4 (all electives) because the necessary data are unavailable and probably also unobtainable. The reason is that change in carbon pools in 1990 is needed as part of the report for these three electives. Such data, with the required quality, are not available in Norway today. Regional stratification is recommended in order to use two different approaches in two different parts of the country (here called “Lowlands” and “Highlands”). It is not recommended to stratify the Norwegian reports because it is not realistic to provide the additional statistical support (in terms of additional sampling units) needed to break the results down to meaningful regional reporting units (eg County). […]
2005
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
2004
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Klaus Mittenzwei Maria Loureiro Wenche Dramstad Wendy Fjellstad Ola Flaten Arnt Kristian Gjertsen Sjur Spildo PrestegardAbstract
The level of support to Norwegian agriculture is partly justified with reference to agriculture’s multifunctionality. The concept of multifunctionality involves the provision of so-called “public goods» by agriculture, in addition to the production of food and fibre. Examples of these public goods include cultural landscape, biodiversity, ecological functions, cultural heritage, the viability of rural areas, and food security. The overall aim of the research project “Operationalization of multifunctionality using the CAPRI modeling system» is to study the effects of policy instruments on agriculture’s multifunctionality by defining quantitative indicators for selected elements of agriculture’s multifunctionality that can be implemented in the agricultural sector model CAPRI. This working paper takes a first step towards the appropriate regionalization when multifunctionality is concerned. The current regionalization of the CAPRI model is at the county level. This approach fails when multifunctionality is concerned, because many issues of multifunctionaliy (e.g., cultural landscape aspects) are independent of administrative borders at that level. As the aim of the overall project is to study the effects of policy instruments on agriculture’s multifunctionality, it is important to design regions within the CAPRI model that to a greater extent exhibit similar characteristics with respect to aspects of agriculture’s multifunctionality. Accordingly, it is reasonable to assume that policy changes will have quite similar effects on the multifunctionality indicators within each of these CAPRI regions. This task has been addressed by performing a cluster analysis by which Norwegian municipalities have been grouped with respect to their performance on variables that are expected to describe different aspects of the multifunctionality of agriculture. This information will then later on be used to regionalize the CAPRI model accordingly. […]