A recent research article that investigates the ecosystem accounting to support the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is now available in the Ecological Indicators journal. The study has been conducted by MAIA’s coordinator Prof. Lars Hein (Wageningen University, the Netherlands), project manager Nicolas Grondard (Wageningen University, the Netherlands) and project member Dr. Lenny G.J. Van Bussel (Wageningen University, the Netherlands).

MAIA’s experts have focused on the Netherlands, for which an elaborate set of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting - Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) accounts has been published, and the themes of nitrogen pollution and farmland biodiversity. Furthermore, they have studied the completeness of indicators included in the accounts, their quality and analysed how the accounts could support agri-environmental reporting, agri-environmental measures effectiveness assessments, and results-based payments to farmers.

By applying the SEEA-EA concepts to agri-environmental policy issues, the authors of the study have reviewed the most important sources of uncertainties and knowledge gaps and conclude that existing accounts already provide relevant natural capital (NC), farmland biodiversity and ecosystem services (ESs) indicators at provincial and national scale. Gaps in the accounts can be filled with existing complementary data sources on N emissions, as well as ongoing development of the accounts on the spatial modeling of biodiversity (farmland species accounts) and ESs.

Read the full paper here.