Optimizing land-use strategies to improve grassland multifunctionality

Abstract

We investigate the effect of spatial land-use intensity allocation, policies, and risk on the expected utility derived from grassland multifunctionality (i.e., bundles of ecosystem services) and optimal land-use strategies. The considered policies stipulate various minimum shares of extensive grasslands and can be implemented at the farm or landscape level. Based on comprehensive survey data from Swiss permanent grasslands, we find that risk decreases expected utility from multifunctionality. Using an integer programming approach shows that optimizing land-use strategies at the landscape level would increase expected utility from multifunctionality. Hence, implementing policies at the landscape level can help increase policy effectiveness and multifunctionality.