Applying the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production framework to map provisioning ecosystem services and their relation to ecosystem functioning across the European Union

Andreas Mayer, Lisa Kaufmann, Gerald Kalt, Sarah Matej, Michaela C. Theurl, Tiago G. Morais, Adrian Leip and Karl-Heinz Erb

Ecosystem Services, 2021, vol. 51, issue C

Abstract: Human intervention on land enhances the supply of provisioning ecosystem services, but also exerts pressures on ecosystem functioning. We utilize the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) framework to assess these relations in European agriculture, for 220 NUTS2 regions. We put a particular focus on individual land system components, i.e. croplands, grasslands, and livestock husbandry and relate associated biomass flows to the potential net primary productivity NPP. For the reference year 2012, we find that 469 g dm/m2/yr (38% of NPPpot) of used biomass were harvested on total agricultural land, and that one tonne of annually harvested biomass is associated with 1.67 tonnes dry matter (dm) of HANPP, ranging from 0.8 to 8.1 tonnes dry matter (dm) across all regions. EU livestock systems are a large consumer of these provisioning ecosystem services, and invoking higher HANPP flows than current HANPP on cropland and grassland within the EU, even exceeding the potential NPP in one fifth of all NUTS2 regions. NPP remaining in ecosystems after provisioning society with biomass is essential for the functioning of ecosystems and is 563 g dm/m2/yr or 46% of NPPpot on all agricultural land. We conclude from our analysis that the HANPP framework provides useful indicators that should be integrated in future ecosystem service assessments.

Keywords: HANPP; eHANPP; NUTS2; Provisioning ecosystem services; Ecosystem functioning; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041621001029
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:51:y:2021:i:c:s2212041621001029

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2021.101344

Access Statistics for this article

Ecosystem Services is currently edited by Leon C Braat

More articles in Ecosystem Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().