 Economic incentives for woodland creation on farmland: Modelling the impacts on biodiversityMary Nthambi, Katherine Simpson, Tom Bradfer-Lawrence, Andrew Dobson, Tom Finch, Elisa Fuentes-Montemayor, Kirsty Park, Kevin Watts and Nick Hanley Ecological Economics, 2024, vol. 224, issue C Abstract: This paper models the effects of economic incentives on woodland planting on UK farmland, and the spatially-varying impacts on three avian species. The economic model uses an agent-based approach: “farmers” in each parcel compare economic returns from keeping their current agricultural land use with the economic incentive for woodland planting. An ecological model then predicts the effects of both parcel-level and local landscape-level woodland cover on species distributions. We compare results from two case study areas which vary in terms of the spatial correlation of opportunity costs and ecological potential. As the per-hectare value of the subsidy for woodland planting is increased, the values of our biodiversity indicator increase, but at rates which vary by case study area and by species. The cost-effectiveness of the economic instrument varies according to the sign of the spatial correlation between opportunity costs and ecological potential. Keywords: Ecological-economic modelling; Biodiversity; Economic incentives; Forest biodiversity; Agent-based modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:224:y:2024:i:c:s0921800924001629 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108265 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier |
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