Contribution of agroforestry to ecosystems services in Europe

Andrej Skok

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

In Europe, the agricultural intensification of the last century led to an unprecedented increase in agricultural productivity, but at the same time, it brought about many negative impacts on the ecology of agroecosystems. Agroforestry is gaining increasing worldwide attention as it is believed that it can be a sustainable alternative to many conventional agriculture systems because of its ability to provide a number of ecosystem services. This literature review aimed to bring a comprehensive summary of the actual state of knowledge on the agroforestry systems and practices provision of main ecosystem services in the region of Central Europe (CE). Information from 84 scientific studies was used to examine five major identified ecosystem services: (1) biodiversity conservation; (2) soil conservation; (3) carbon sequestration; (4) water management, and; (5) cultural services. Information gathered from the studies shows generally positive effects of agroforestry on all the reviewed ecosystem services. However, a large part of the studies suggests that additional enhancement of the effects can be achieved by adequate spatial composition of the system, species composition, uptake management, and other factors. It was found that amongst all included studies, biodiversity conservation was the most investigated service, while the lowest number of studies observed the potential for carbon sequestration. The largest proportion of the identified studies comes from Germany, while the smallest number originates from Austria. Additionally, significant variability related to the amount of found studies for each ecosystem service has been observed among the CE countries.

Keywords

biodiversity conservation, soil conservation, water management, carbon sequestration, cultural services

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 17. 4. 2023

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 25. 5. 2023
• Supervisor: prof. Ing. Bohdan Lojka, Ph.D.
• Reader: Lenka Ehrenbergerová, externi

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Bachelor programme:
Tropical Agriculture