Comparison of the impact of conventional and organic farming on the provision of ecosystem services and formulation of arguments for adjusting the setting of support for organic farming.

The project aims to compare the impact of conventional and organic farming on the provision of ecosystem services, using own research, available data and literature. Ecosystem services whose provision is crucial both for the long-term resilience of agrarian ecosystems and for maintaining the resilience of the whole environment will be quantified. By quantifying ecosystem services in biophysical units (in conventional and organic farming) and their subsequent assessment, including life cycle assessment of selected agricultural products, the hitherto insufficiently under-considered added value of organic farming production in relation to the ecosystem services will be analyzed. Arguments and recommendations for (adjusting) the setting of organic farming support in accordance with the Czech Action Plan of organic farming and other related documents will be formulated.

Czech-Norwegian bilateral workshops on the use of floodplain forest buffer zones for improving water quality and reducing soil erosion.

Water quality is often influenced by agricultural production (soil run-off into watercourses, water pollution caused by fertiliser and other chemicals etc.). At the same time, current agricultural practices are contributing significantly to the erosion of valuable fertile soils. The costs of water treatment / purification within the water management infrastructure are increasing; the quality of soil and water, and the biodiversity are decreasing. Only little attention is paid to so called nature-based solutions (NBS), which could help meet these challenges and furthermore they bring also many other benefits to the society in form of various ecosystem services. One of these NBS is floodplain forest buffer zones between agricultural land and watercourses, but so far very little planting has taken place. The practical implementation of this measure faces a number of barriers.

The aim of the project is therefore to support the meetings of scientists and practitioners from the Czech Republic and Norway, enabling the exchange of experience and knowledge in this area, which should result in the submission of a joint bilateral or multilateral project aimed at identifying and evaluating the benefits of the riparian forest buffer zone and the subsequent proposal of support mechanisms for their practical implementation.

Funding Agency:           State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic, Norway Grants

Duration:                      01/2019–08/2022

Contact Person:            Jiří Louda, e-mail: louda@ieep.cz

In cooperation with:       Norwegian University of Life Science, Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences

Development of interdisciplinary tools to support management of rainwater in municipalities.

Implementation of nature-based solutions in urbanized areas has a significant potential for adaptation of municipalities to climate change and reduction of associated negative effects such as floods from torrential rainfall, drought or heat islands. Although Czech municipalities try to prevent these effects, implementation of nature-based rainwater-retaining solutions in reality often faces insufficient capacities and lack of information necessary for their planning, procurement, implementation and promotion. One-sided solutions that do not fully exploit the potential for implementing blue and green infrastructure are often designed for these reasons.

The aim of our interdisciplinary project is to create a methodology that will clarify and facilitate municipalities’ decision-making during planning and implementation of nature-based rainwater-retaining solutions in urbanized areas. Furthermore, particular examples of possible solutions in an urbanized area will be provided, based on the character of the city and its surroundings.

The IEEP research team builds here on previous projects dealing with blue and green infrastructure. Existing outputs and tools will be further developed and applied in this project through interdisciplinary cooperation.

Development of a tool and SMART method for economic evaluation.

The realization of nature based solution fases their low enforceability and awareness of their co-benefits. An economic assessment of specific measures may serve as an important argument for the implementation (planning) of these measeures and leads to an increase in awareness of their importance. The aim of the project was to find, define, systemize and validate methods for the economic evaluation of different categories of nature based solutions (e.g. green walls and roofs, trees, etc.) in intelligent urban areas using green and blue infrastructure. The categories will be quantified both from the point of view of the direct costs and benefits associated with the construction and operation, and from the point of view of the side effects that are currently missing in the decisioin making process. A comprehensive methodology economic assessment was developed within the project, which will serve primarily as a basis for decision-making processes in the public administration.

Detecting, quantifying and evaluating the ecosystem services in the cities Dresden, Liberec and Děčín.

Presently, preservation of biodiversity and functioning of ecosystems belongs to the main challenges for human society. Although services provided by nature affect significantly the quality of life and human well being, there are losses of the services due to a construction development especially in cities. To the green and blue infrastructure is attached great importance as a result of the growing population in cities and increasing risks of manifestation of climate change.
This project seeks to reveal the relation between sustainable nature value creation, the elements of nature in cities and human well-being by utilizing the concept of ecosystem services. The aim is to increase the importance of ecosystem services and value of nature in an urban environment using green and blue infrastructure evaluation in the pilot cities (Dresden, Liberec, Decin) by utilizing methodological approaches of economic assessment. The results of this analysis can be used in decision-making processes in the field of urban planning, nature conservation and work with the public.
In the project our team will focus on the creation of common methodological approaches and on the use of ecosystem services concept valuation of green and blue infrastructure in cities. The project will involve an interlinking of our team’s activities in the area of nature and ecosystem services and nature-based solutions valuation in the cities.

Project outputs are developed in cooperation with Faculty of Environment and Department of Geography of Faculty of Science UJEP. 

Economic assessment of measares for sustainable use of biomass.

The pressure on agricultural land exploitation is ever increasing at present, whether for growing of fodder, energy biomass or food production, resulting in conflicts among these differing interests and uses. The problem is further aggravated by the climate change in progress, which manifests itself by more frequent and longer droughts among other things. Support to renewable sources of energy, including biomass, has a substantial influence as well. The project therefore strives to identify suitable methods for optimization of biomass use with respect to economic efficiency, food self-sufficiency (need to grow food and fodder) and consideration of requirements for soil protection, notably limits on soil exploitation and prevention of soil degradation.
The project follows up and expands on the IS RESTEP tool for optimization of biomass use. The principal objective of the follow-up project is to add an ECONOMICS module to the tool, enabling regional sustainable energy planning. It will thus enable economic analysis of not only agricultural biomass production with a focus on both crops and techniques. In addition, it will enable analysis of subsequent energy use. The project will involve an expansion of the information tool with new sources of information for decision making.
Economic analysis involves not only direct costs of and revenues from growing and use of agricultural biomass for energy purposes. The IEEP team will focus in the project on assessment of externalities associated with biomass production. A choice experiment will be made in this connection. The ecosystem service concept will also be applied. The project will involve an interlinking of our team’s activities in the area of air, energy and ecosystem services.
The implementation of the four-year project as part of the sub-programme “Support to innovative agriculture and forestry by means of advanced procedures and techniques” involves 6 national partners; the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague is the consortium leader.

Supporting the climate change adaptation of cities Prague, Brno, Plzen and Ustí nad Labem by promotion of nature-based solutions.

Three quarters of Europe’s inhabitants live in cities that are often vulnerable and poorly prepared for the effects of climate change (heat waves, water scarcity, drought, floods). The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report states that adaptation measures in cities are crucial successful adaptation to climate change. The aim of the project is to support decision-making processes and the development of climate adaptation measures and strategies in pilot cities (Prague, Pilsen, Ústí nad Labem, Brno). Research is based on the methodical approaches of economic valuation, analysis of existing climate adaptation policies (barriers and opportunities), and assessment of the possible implementation of nature-based measures.

Supporting the climate change adaptation strategies development of Prague, Brno and Pilsen with respect to the potential of green and blue infrastructure enlargement.

The aim of the project is to launch and develop the preparation process of adaptation strategy of cities, and to design and evaluate suitable adaptation measures in selected urban areas (Prague, Brno, Pilsen) in the Czech Republic, with the support of ecosystem based approaches. Partial goals of the project are: to perform the risk and vulnerability assessment connected to the climate change on local urban level in cooperation with stakeholders, to identify relevant adaptation measures, to quantify costs and benefits of preferred adaptation measures, to prepare and formulate adaptation strategies of cities following on “Strategy on adaptation to climate change in the conditions of the Czech Republic“, and to launch the process of an implementation of adaptation strategy and related measures. An important part is also the incorporation of the elements of “green and blue infrastructure“ and ecosystem services into the adaptation cycle and into single measures and adaptation alternatives.

Pilot use of the concept of ecosystem services to support business enterprise at regional level and to optimize their impact on the environment.

The project builds on the “Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Regional Value Chains” project and deepens the analysis of current use and future potential of using the ecosystem services concept, this time focusing on the business sector (especially in the food industry, agriculture, forestry, tourism and beekeeping). Within the project, research of companies in the border area (aiming at the Usti nad Labem region and the Liberec region) is performed with the goal to identify both the selected economic sectors, and particular businesses, where it will be able to apply the concept of ecosystem services and biodiversity within the standard activities of these businesses. A broader goal of this project is (in model companies) to integrate a system of indicators following the quality of biodiversity and the flow of ecosystem services, and to use these indicators both for nature and biodiversity protection, respectively; and to increase the additional value of the output of single companies. The research within the project will also be focused on the analysis of the potential of a cross border cooperation of subjects to increase the additional value of companies´ outputs. On this project, experts from Poland, Saxony and Bohemia will participate.