Formalizing agro-ecological knowledge for future-oriented land use studies.

Identification and ex-ante assessment of alternative land use systems is increasingly important to develop systems that are able to fulfill multiple and possibly conflicting needs of mankind.
This study contributes to the development of a formalized approach to identify and engineer future-oriented land use systems at the field level enabling the systematic exploration of landuse options at farm and regional level. Case study data from the Atlantic zone of Costa Rica and West Africa are used to develop, test and elaborate the required approach, and to implement the approach in two operational tools...