IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v14y2025i4p865-d1635150.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ecosystem Service Values and Wheat Agroecosystem Management Types in a Semi-Arid Region, Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Saeed Sharafi

    (Department of Environment Science and Engineering, Arak University, Arak 38156879, Iran)

  • Zahra Marzban

    (Department of Agronomy Science, University of Zabol, Zabol 9861335856, Iran)

  • Deirdre Dragovich

    (School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia)

Abstract

Global demand for ecosystem services like food and clean water is increasing, and it is crucial to economically value these services for the purposes of environmental conservation, land-use planning, and the implementation of green taxes. Focusing on a monoculture wheat agroecosystem, the economic value of ecosystem services and environmental damage from different farm management types is here compared with natural ecosystems in a semi-arid region in Iran during the 2019–2020 agricultural year. Using field survey data collected from 203 wheat farms with varying management practices, we estimated the economic value of six ecosystem services, along with three environmental damages. The net value of provisioning/regulating services less environmental disservices in wheat agroecosystems was highest for farms with a conservation management system, followed (in rank order) by intensive, traditional, organic, and industrial management types. Wheat agroecosystems recorded net values of 41.94% to 66.92% below those of natural ecosystems in the region. The findings show that converting natural ecosystems into wheat agroecosystems increases the value of provisioning services (food and forage) but also substantially increases environmental costs. These costs rose linearly with the value of increases in provisioning services.

Suggested Citation

  • Saeed Sharafi & Zahra Marzban & Deirdre Dragovich, 2025. "Ecosystem Service Values and Wheat Agroecosystem Management Types in a Semi-Arid Region, Iran," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-22, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:4:p:865-:d:1635150
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/865/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/865/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:4:p:865-:d:1635150. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.