Assessing biodiversity in arable farmland by means of indicators: an overview

Abstract

Maintaining biodiversity is one of the key issues of sustainable agriculture. It is now stated that innovation to enhance biodiversity in arable land requires operational assessment tools like indicators. The goal of the article is to provide an overview of available indicators. Besides measured indicators and simple indicators based on management data, we focus on predictive indicators derived from operational models and adapted to ex ante assessment in innovative cropping design. The possibility of use for each indicator type is discussed.

Keywords

• environmental assessment
• indicator
• model
• validation
• biodiversity
• ecosystemic services