Agricultural land use and conservation options : a modelling approach.

The thesis presents the modelling system MODAM (Multi-Objective Decision support tool for Agroecosystem Management) which was developed at the Centre for Agricul- tural Landscape and Land Use Research (ZALF) Müncheberg. The aim of the develop- ment of MODAM is to foster sustainable development of agricultural landscapes by decision support at farm and at policy level. Therefore, indicators assessing the environ- mental performance of agricultural activities are included in an economic farm decision model. The hierarchical modeling approach of MODAM is based on relational databases combined with Basic-modules, fuzzy tools and a solver for linear programming prob- lems. A three level approach is performed, in which at the first level a catalogue of production practices is described. The second level consists of economic and environ- mental evaluation tools, delivering technical, economic and ecological coefficients like potential water erosion risk for each production practice. In the third level, an integrated analyses of all available data is performed by generating a linear programming farm model. MODAM has been applied in several research projects at farm and at regional level, delivering trade-off’s and scenario specific land use patterns.