Reshaping agricultural peatland use climate friendly in selected German regions

Lena Schaller, Jochen Kantelhardt, Rico Hübner, Annette Freibauer and Matthias Droesler

No 51547, 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: About 30 percent of the world’s soil carbon is stored in peat soils. Peatland’s functional principle of carbon storage greatly depends on management strategies. Therefore agricultural peatland use becomes a focal point of interest in the current debate on climate protection. Agricultural management demands a drawdown of the water-level that causes aerobe degradation of the soils, as well as trace-gas emissions which have a negative impact on greenhouse-gas balance. Climate-friendly peatland management strategies, however, demand enhanced groundwater tables and decreased land-use intensity. Against this background we analyse ways of re-organising agricultural peatland use within a case study located in Germany, where intensive peatland use accounts for 2.3 – 4.5% of the country’s overall greenhouse-gas emission. In order to cover all possible socio-economic and natural conditions, the study takes place in six representative regions. To analyse the micro-economic effects of re-organising peatland use, network analysis, stakeholder workshops and extensive farm surveys were carried out. First results indicate that a re-organisation of peatland use causes severe loss of agricultural income and necessitates financial compensation for farmers. However the results also show that the potential of rearrangement varies significantly according to regional conditions.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Farm Management; Land Economics/Use; Production Economics; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae09:51547

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.51547

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