Browsing by Author "Mosquera-Losada, Rosa"

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    Agroforestry creates carbon sinks whilst enhancing the environment in agricultural landscapes in Europe
    (Elsevier, 2019-03-06) Sonja, Kay; Rega, Carlo; Moreno, Gerardo; den Herder, Michael; Palma, João H. N.; Borek, Robert; Crous-Duran, Josep; Freese, Dirk; Giannitsopoulos, Michail; Graves, Anil; Jäger, Mareike; Lamersdorf, Norbert; Memedemin, Daniyar; Mosquera-Losada, Rosa; Pantera, Anastasia; Paracchini, Maria Luisa; Paris, Pierluigi; Roces-Díaz, José V.; Rolo, Victor; Rosati, Adolfo; Sandor, Mignon; Smith, Jo; Szerencsits, Erich; Varga, Anna; Viaud, Valérie; Wawer, Rafal; Burgess, Paul J.; Herzog, Felix
    Agroforestry, relative to conventional agriculture, contributes significantly to carbon sequestration, increases a range of regulating ecosystem services, and enhances biodiversity. Using a transdisciplinary approach, we combined scientific and technical knowledge to evaluate nine environmental pressures in terms of ecosystem services in European farmland and assessed the carbon storage potential of suitable agroforestry systems, proposed by regional experts. First, regions with potential environmental pressures were identified with respect to soil health (soil erosion by water and wind, low soil organic carbon), water quality (water pollution by nitrates, salinization by irrigation), areas affected by climate change (rising temperature), and by underprovision in biodiversity (pollination and pest control pressures, loss of soil biodiversity). The maps were overlaid to identify areas where several pressures accumulate. In total, 94.4% of farmlands suffer from at least one environmental pressure, pastures being less affected than arable lands. Regional hotspots were located in north-western France, Denmark, Central Spain, north and south-western Italy, Greece, and eastern Romania. The 10% of the area with the highest number of accumulated pressures were defined as Priority Areas, where the implementation of agroforestry could be particularly effective. In a second step, European agroforestry experts were asked to propose agroforestry practices suitable for the Priority Areas they were familiar with, and identified 64 different systems covering a wide range of practices. These ranged from hedgerows on field boundaries to fast growing coppices or scattered single tree systems. Third, for each proposed system, the carbon storage potential was assessed based on data from the literature and the results were scaled-up to the Priority Areas. As expected, given the wide range of agroforestry practices identified, the carbon sequestration potentials ranged between 0.09 and 7.29 t C ha−1 a−1. Implementing agroforestry on the Priority Areas could lead to a sequestration of 2.1 to 63.9 million t C a−1 (7.78 and 234.85 
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    Creating agroforestry innovation and best practice leaflets
    (European Agroforestry Federation and the University of Santiago de Compostela, 2018-05-30) Burgess, Paul; Moreno, Gerardo; Pantera, Anastasia; Kanzler, Michael; Hermansen, John; van Lerberghe, Philippe; Balaguer, Fabien; Girardin, Nicolas; Rosati, Adolfo; Graves, Anil; Watté, Jeroen; Mosquera-Losada, Rosa; Waldie, Kevin; Pagella, Tim; Liagre, Fabien
    A key output of the EU FP7 project AGFORWARD was a series of 46 agroforestry innovation and 10 agroforestry best practice leaflets for European farmers and other stakeholders. This paper describes the process of over 80 people working together to create the leaflets and the overall result.
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    How is agroforestry perceived in Europe? An assessment of positive and negative aspects by stakeholders
    (Springer, 2017-08-24) Garcia de Jalon, Silvestre; Burgess, Paul J.; Graves, Anil; Moreno, Gerardo; McAdam, Jim; Pottier, Eric; Novak, Sandra; Bondesan, Valerio; Mosquera-Losada, Rosa; Crous-Duran, Josep; Palma, João H. N.; Paulo, Joana A.; Oliveira, Tania S.; Cirou, Eric; Hannachi, Yousri; Pantera, Anastasia; Wartelle, Regis; Kay, Sonja; Malignier, Nina; van Lerberghe, Philippe; Tsonkova, Penka; Mirck, Jaconette; Rois, Mercedes; Kongsted, Anne Grete; Thenail, Claudine; Luske, Boki; Berg, Staffan; Gosme, Marie; Vityi, Andrea
    Whilst the benefits of agroforestry are widely recognised in tropical latitudes few studies have assessed how agroforestry is perceived in temperate latitudes. This study evaluates how stakeholders and key actors including farmers, landowners, agricultural advisors, researchers and environmentalists perceive the implementation and expansion of agroforestry in Europe. Meetings were held with 30 stakeholder groups covering different agroforestry systems in 2014 in eleven EU countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). In total 344 valid responses were received to a questionnaire where stakeholders were asked to rank the positive and negative aspects of implementing agroforestry in their region. Improved biodiversity and wildlife habitats, animal health and welfare, and landscape aesthetics were seen as the main positive aspects of agroforestry. By contrast, increased labour, complexity of work, management costs and administrative burden were seen as the most important negative aspects. Overall, improving the environmental value of agriculture was seen as the main benefit of agroforestry, whilst management and socio-economic issues were seen as the greatest barriers. The great variability in the opportunities and barriers of the systems suggests enhanced adoption of agroforestry across Europe will be most likely to occur with specific initiatives for each type of system.