An analytical framework to link governance, agricultural production practices, and the provision of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes

The provision of ecosystem services (ES) in agricultural landscapes depends, inter alia, on agricultural production, and can therefore be influenced by governance. To capture the impacts of governance on ES via agriculture, we proposed and tested an analytical framework – based on agricultural location theory – to describe possible agricultural impact pathways. These pathways show how different governance approaches (e.g. hierarchical, market-based, collaborative, and their hybrids) influence site and farm conditions, which in turn influence agricultural production practices and thus ES provision. The framework was applied to three European case study regions in the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria. The sub-objectives were: i) to identify regional governance approaches and assess how well they reflect the regional specifics, as a basis for applying the framework; and, by applying the framework, to: ii) investigate how these governance approaches then differ in their agricultural impact pathways and thus effects on agriculture; and iii) evaluate their respective influence on ES provision. The governance approaches were compiled and analysed from several sources, e.g. legal documents and grey literature from regional sources, regional workshops, and consultation with stakeholders. The analyses showed that different governance types indeed differ in how well they accommodate regional specifics in their agricultural impact pathways, and thus in their influence on agriculture and ES provision. Overall, the analytical framework is suited to highlighting the agricultural perspective in the ES concept and to exploring the constraints and opportunities for farmers to adopt agricultural production practices that favour the provision of ES as environmental public goods.