Environmental risks fromagriculture in Europe

Locating environmental risk zones in Europe using agri-environmental indicators

Citation: Delbaere, B. & A. Nieto Serradilla (Eds) (2004)

Environmental risks from agriculture in Europe: Locating

environmental risk zones in Europe using agri-environmental

indicators – Tilburg, ECNC-European Centre for Nature

Conservation

ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation

Headquarters Tilburg

PO Box 90154

5000 LG Tilburg

the Netherlands

ecnc@ecnc.org

www.ecnc.org

ECNC Regional Office Budapest

c.o. National Authority for Nature Conservation

Költo Utca 21

1121 Budapest

Hungary

ecnc@ecnc.hu

2004 © ECNC: No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

or otherwise, without the prior written permission of ECNC.

The EnRisk team is solely responsible for the content of this

document. It does not represent the opinion of the European

Community, nor is the EC responsible for any use that might

be made of data appearing herein.

EnRisk is financed by the European Commission as a

Concerted Action under theme ‘Quality of Life and

Management of Living Resources’ of the Fifth Framework

Programme for Research, Technological Development and

Demonstration Activities.

Contract no.: QLK5-CT-2001-01911

Edited by:

Ben Delbaere and Ana Nieto Serradilla,

ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation

With contributions by:

• Prof. Dr Winfried E.H. Blum, Dr Max Kuderna & Gabriele

Wolkerstorfer – Institute for Soil Research, University of

Agricultural Sciences, Vienna, Austria

• Dr Floor Brouwer & Frans E. Godeschalk - Agricultural

Economics Research Institute, Wageningen University and

Research Centre, the Netherlands

• Prof. Dr Francisco Díaz Pineda, Paloma Fernández Sañudo

& Teresa Gil Gil - Centro de Investigaciones Ambientales de

la Comunidad de Madrid ‘Fernando González Bernáldez’,

Spain

• Dr Ir Anne Gobin - Laboratory for Experimental

Geomorphology, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

• Paul Goriup – The NatureBureau, United Kingdom

• Prof. Dr Volkmar Gutsche – Federal Biological Research

Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Germany

• Dr Alan Pickaver – EUCC – the Coastal Union, the

Netherlands

• Dirk Wascher & Michiel van Eupen – Alterra, Green World

Research, the Netherlands

• Dr Paul Williams – The Natural History Museum, United

Kingdom

• Dr Christoph Zöckler, Mary Edwards & Matt Doughty –

UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, United

Kingdom

Environmental risks fromagriculture in Europe

Locating environmental risk zones in Europe using agri-environmental indicators

4 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agriculture and the environment

List of contents Preface 8 Executive summary 9 Introduction 12

1 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture 15

1.1 Agriculture and the environment 151.2 Agri-environmental policies in Europe 171.2.1 Policy focused on nutrient enrichment 17 1.2.2 Soil erosion policy 181.2.3 Policies on pesticide use 181.2.4 Policies on agriculture and biodiversity 191.2.5 European landscape policies 201.3 Agri-environmental indicators 211.3.1 The ELISA project 211.3.2 European Union and the IRENA project 211.3.3 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 241.4 Environmental risk assessment 241.5 Method applied in the EnRisk project 261.5.1 EnRisk objectives 261.5.2 Scientific added value 261.5.3 Geographical scope 261.5.4 Common framework 26

2 Risk assessment at the European scale 31

2.1 Soil erosion 312.1.1 Assessment of the European soil loss 312.1.2 Methodology 332.1.3 Mapping soil erosion risk zones 362.1.4 Interpretation of results 412.2 Nutrient enrichment 442.2.1 Overview and interpretation of data sources 442.2.2 Methodology 502.2.3 European eutrophication risk zones 502.2.4 Interpretation of results 512.3 Pesticide use 522.3.1 Overview and interpretation of data sources 522.3.2 Methodology 532.3.3 Mapping pesticide risk zones 552.3.4 Interpretation of results 56

2.4 Biodiversity 622.4.1 Assessing risks to biodiversity 622.4.2 Overview of data sources 632.4.3 Methodology 652.4.4 European biodiversity risk zones 682.4.5 Interpretation of results 682.5 Landscape 752.5.1 Conceptual framework 752.5.2 Overview and interpretation of data sources 752.5.3 Methodological approach for landscape state and vulnerability assessment 792.5.4 Calculation towards landscape vulnerability for diversity 822.5.5 Interpretation of results 882.5.6 Landscape risk assessment: example of livestock density 892.6 Matching environmental risk zones with farm types 912.6.1 Soil erosion 912.6.2 Eutrophication 912.6.3 Pesticide 912.6.4 Relating biodiversity risk zones to farm practices 922.6.5 Landscapes 922.7 Integrative assessment soil erosion and pesticide use 95

3 Risk assessment at local to regional scales 97

3.1 Introduction 973.2 General description of the Region of Murcia, Spain 993.2.1 Introduction 993.3 Soil erosion in the Region of Murcia, Spain 1043.3.1 The case study area 1043.3.2 Data and model used in the case study area 1043.3.3 Validation and comparison of the European approach 1043.3.4 Tolerable soil loss 1063.4 Pesticide use in the Region of Murcia, Spain 1083.4.1 Database 1083.4.2 Method 1083.4.3 Results and discussion 1093.5 Eutrophication in Murcia 1143.5.1 Database 1143.5.2 Method 1143.5.3 Results and discussion 1143.6 Risks to biodiversity in Murcia 1163.6.1 Introduction 1163.6.2 Method and results 1163.6.3 Interpretation of results 1193.7 Landscape risks in Murcia 1213.7.1 The backgrounds of changes in landscape diversity in the southeast of Spain 121

3.7.2 Landscape types in Murcia 1213.7.3 Landscape diversity and vulnerability 1223.8 Soil erosion risks in the Ybbs river basin, Austria and the Zala river basin, Hungary 1263.8.1 The case study areas 1263.8.2 Data and models used in the case study areas 1263.8.3 Validation and comparison of the European approach 1283.8.4 Validation by others 1313.9 Parcel-level pesticide risks in Lamspringe – county Hildesheim, Germany 1323.9.1 Background 1323.9.2 Characterization of investigation site 1323.9.3 Data and method 1323.9.4 Results and discussion 1323.9.5 Summarizing conclusions 1363.10 Eutrophication risks and biodiversity in the Baltic Sea 1373.10.1 The characteristics of the Baltic Sea and eutrophication 1373.10.2 Loading of nitrogen and phosphorus as a result of agricultural practices 1373.10.3 Impacts on biodiversity caused by eutrophication 1413.10.4 Current environmental risk assessment 1453.10.5 Conclusions 1473.11 Landscape risks in the Green Heart, the Netherlands 1493.11.1 The Green Heart as part of the Randstad 1493.11.2 Agriculture 1503.11.3 National validation of landscape Shannon diversity 1513.11.4 National validation of landscape vulnerability taking into account intrinsic diversity 1543.11.5 Landscape diversity changes over time 1543.11.6 Interpretation of the results 154

4 Review of methodology, data and results 157

4.1 Soil erosion 1574.2 Pesticides 1604.3 Eutrophication 1614.4 Biodiversity 1614.5 Landscape 163

5 Conclusions 165

6 Recommendations 169

Bibliography 172 Project participants 178 Acronyms 180 Annexes 182 Thank you 183 Colophon 184

PrefaceEurope’s agricultural policy and its relation to our natural

environment has been the subject of a lot of debate over

recent years. It has long been my conviction that

environmental concerns should be integrated more seriously

into agricultural policies. I was therefore encouraged by the

mid-term reform of the European Union’s Common

Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003, although arguably more

could have been achieved. Already before that reform I

stressed in my speech to Europe’s environment ministers

gathering in Kyiv for the fifth ‘Environment for Europe’

conference in May 2003 that in my view the CAP should be

developed into an European Union’s Rural Policy as soon as

possible, in which the ‘production’ of nature, biodiversity and

landscape values should be regarded as important elements

for rural development, including the economic viability of

regions.

It is in this perspective that I am delighted with the

publication of this report on ‘Environmental risks from

agriculture in Europe’. It is a key output of three years of

investigations by an experienced and interdisciplinary team

of 11 European scientists under coordination by ECNC–

European Centre for Nature Conservation in the project

abbreviated EnRisk – Environmental Risk Assessment for

European Agriculture.

This team has made an attempt to use agri-environmental

indicators and data sets in Europe for the identification of

areas that are at particularly high risk for negative impacts

from selected agricultural practices on water, soil,

biodiversity and landscapes. As the report concludes, this

has not been an easy task for various reasons of a technical

nature. However, the report clearly outlines a methodology

that can, if more accurate and up-to-date data become

available, support policymakers in identifying priority areas

for taking environmental measures.

Amongst others, the study recommends that more effort be

put into collecting and processing environmental data in

harmonized ways. This is particularly applicable to the topics

of biodiversity and landscapes. The report also recommends

that, together with the Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development, the European Commission and

others, the risk indicators that have been developed by the

team should be further refined.

This report is a tool to convey the message that emerges

from the research to a broad audience. I encourage both the

science and policy community to study the recommendations

of the team and to integrate them into their developments.

The recommendations may well be incorporated in future

research studies on relations between agriculture and

environment as well as in rural policy development at both

regional and international levels. You can count on ECNC to

help to make the recommendations a reality.

I should like to take this opportunity to thank the EnRisk

team at ECNC and its project partners for the work and

creativity they have put into achieving this output. I should

also like to thank the EnRisk steering group and others who

have contributed valuable and constructive criticism during

the course of this project. And finally, a word of thanks goes

to the European Commission (Directorate-General Research)

for providing the financial opportunity to undertake this

research. I hope you will find the result interesting and

constructive reading.

Sir Brian UnwinPresident ECNC

8

9

Executive summaryEurope’s environment, biological diversity and landscape

have to a large extent been shaped by agricultural land use.

Today agricultural practices have both positive and negative

impacts on the environment and its components. Because of

the diversity in environmental, biological and geomorphological

factors in Europe the impacts from agriculture vary by

region. European policies, most notably the European Union’s

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have been developed and

implemented to ensure that agricultural harm to the

environment is reduced or compensated. In order for the

policies and measures to be most effective it is important to

customize and prioritize their implementation to the

characteristics of individual regions of Europe. For this

reason it is important to know which areas of Europe are

more sensitive to environmental impacts from agriculture

than others. In other words, where are the areas of highest

risk for environmental damage from agriculture?

The current report contains the final product of a project that

has aimed to answer this question: EnRisk, or ‘Environmental

Risk Assessment for European Agriculture’. During a period

of three years a team of 11 research institutes from six

European countries, financed by the European Commission,

has worked towards the following objectives:

• to investigate the role of risk assessment as a decision

support tool;

• to test existing data and indicators;

• to identify and map environmental risk zones at European

and local level; and

• to formulate policy and methodology recommendations.

Building on the previous ELISA project (Environmental

Indicators for Sustainable Agriculture) the project team has

concentrated on five environmental themes: soil erosion,

pesticide use, nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and

landscape change. It has done so in an integrated way, by

looking at the interactions between these themes as well as

by relating the findings to farm practices. The research was

carried out from two geographical perspectives: the pan-

European scale and local or regional case studies.

The EnRisk project has been innovative in its approach

because:

• agri-environmental indicators were tested for the concrete

purpose of environmental risk assessment;

• integrated environmental risk assessment was carried out,

linking five themes and their interrelations and the cause-

effect relations with agricultural land use;

• the focus of 'conventional' risk assessment is on

ecotoxicology and human health, whereas EnRisk looked at

ecological risk assessment by assessing risk to ecosystems

and their components;

• risks from agriculture to biodiversity and landscapes were

quantified and risk indicators developed.

For both the European assessment and the case studies the

best available data have been used. No data have been

specifically collected for the purpose of the study. Although

this forms a limitation to what could be possible, it gives the

opportunity to really test in how far these databases, such as

the Corine Land Cover database (CLC), can be used for the

purpose of environmental risk assessment. The challenge by

using this approach has been to find a way to combine data

that vary in quality, scale, resolution, geographical coverage,

structure, or actuality into a common output.

Also the agri-environmental indicators that have initially been

selected for the assessments were developed elsewhere.

Specifically the indicators that were proposed by the ELISA

project, as well as those listed by the European Union (EU)

(and implemented in the IRENA project (Indicator Reporting

on the Integration of Environmental Concerns into Agriculture

Policy)) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD) formed a starting point for the

environmental themes covered by EnRisk. Additional risk

indicators were developed for some of the individual themes.

For integrating the EnRisk themes the following rationale

has been guiding the research. First, indicators were

selected to quantify and map out the state of the receptor

themes (e.g. soil type, nitrogen load in rivers, breeding bird

richness or landscape diversity). Second, indicators to

quantify pressures from agriculture were identified (e.g.

livestock density, pesticide usage, agricultural land cover

type). In a third step threshold levels have been assigned to

relate the potential pressures to actual risks to the receptor

themes (e.g. tolerable soil loss, pesticide impact scores for

arable breeding birds). The combination of the threshold

levels and the pressure values was then used in a fourth step

to map out environmental risk zones.

Once the risk zones for components of the five environmental

themes were located on a map farm level statistics were

used to explain the causal relation between farm practices

and the risks identified. The findings at the European level

were refined, validated and tested by case studies for each of

the themes. One case study, in the Spanish Region of Murcia,

looked at all environmental themes, whereas other case

studies concentrated on specific environmental risks (e.g.

the impact from nutrient enrichment in the Baltic Sea area

on marine biodiversity through eutrophication).

The environmental risk assessments carried out in the

EnRisk project led to the following conclusions:• a methodology using data of different resolution and

accuracy was developed to assess risks posed by certain

agricultural activities on environmental components;

• with the current data quality at European level,

environmental risk assessment on a European scale allows

location of risk zones at a very coarse resolution and with a

high level of uncertainty. The approach developed in this

project will allow for proper continent-wide risk assessment

in the future, when more accurate and up-to-date

environmental data become available. This is especially true

for the topics of eutrophication, biodiversity and landscape;

• interpretation of risk maps requires forecasting of

scenarios in agricultural land use changes. To date, such

forecast information is unavailable to make proper

judgements;

• the agri-environmental indicators that have been

developed in the ELISA project, at the level of EU or by OECD,

have proven to be a good starting point for risk assessment;

• the Corine land cover classes have been identified on the

basis of satellite remote sensing and are therefore non-

exclusive and not always accurate. The recent results of the

CLC 2000 project may increase the quality of these data;

• the species distribution data from the European biological

atlases using a 50x50 km grid are too coarse for a European-

wide analysis. Although general assessments can be made,

the data resolution and reliability do not allow for

interpretation of risk regions with the precision required. For

this purpose, it would be a high priority to survey European

biodiversity at finer resolution.

The above conclusions lead to the following

recommendations:

With regard to agri-environmental measures:

• the indicative maps of environmental risk areas in Europe

should be interpreted as a confirmation of the severity of

agricultural impacts on the environment across large parts

of Europe;

• areas with high sensitivity and currently under low to

medium pressures (mostly in new EU Member States) should

be treated with high priority for conservation and for

implementation of agri-environmental measures;

• areas with high pressures are highlighted on a European

scale to alert to prime activities for mitigation:

• for soil erosion: southern and central Spain, parts of

Italy and Greece;

• for nutrient enrichment: the Netherlands, northwest

Germany and northern France;

• for pesticides: the Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium),

northwest Germany and south Germany;

• for biodiversity and landscapes: most new EU Member

States and Eastern European countries, northern

Germany, Greece and southern Spain;

• therefore, the increased concern for environmental

matters in agricultural policy (CAP reform, Biodiversity

Action Plan for agriculture, reinforced EU Rural Development

policy) should be reflected through an undelayed

implementation of the proposed actions;

• the implementation of agri-environmental measures

should take into account the regional differentiation and the

differences between environmental themes, as demonstrated

in this report, as a basis for achieving improvements;

• an integrated approach in treating risks from agricultural

practices on the environment is adopted. Such an approach

could limit the risks of knock-on effects from different

environmental themes;

• sustainability impact assessments should be undertaken

as a standard practice for planned changes in agricultural

land use at larger scales;

• livestock density is considered to be an indicator for the

broader process of intensification of agriculture, rather than

only for nutrient pollution.

With regard to data:

• increased effort should be put in improving and updating

European agricultural and environmental data sets with

regards to their accuracy, scientific rigorousness,

geographical coverage, accessibility, format and

comparability;

• the indicators that have been developed by EnRisk should

be used in related projects on agri-environmental

relationships, such as the IRENA project and in the

implementation of agri-environmental indicators by OECD

countries;

• an increased sampling effort to acquire representative

biological data at sufficiently detailed taxonomic and spatial

resolution – including for highly indicative taxa currently not

10

11

well represented in regular data collection, such as

butterflies and plants – should be supported and advocated

by the responsible authorities;

• international organizations responsible for European data

collection and processing should continue and increase their

cooperation in order to fully integrate biodiversity and

environmental data at relevant scales;

• the EnRisk methodology should be further refined with

new data sets, most notably land cover change data deriving

from the CLC 2000, in order to develop environmental risk

indicators that can be applied at European as well as

regional level;

• research efforts towards assessing risks to biodiversity

should be increased. In this respect it is recommended that

the Integrated Project ALARM (Assessing LArge-scale

environmental Risks with tested Methods, funded by the EU’s

Sixth Framework Programme) (UFZ, 2004) builds on the

findings from EnRisk.

With regard to farming practices and their relation to

environmental risks:

• for biodiversity conservation, priority should be given to

areas that are identified as highly sensitive because of the

relatively low agricultural inputs and high value for

biodiversity;

• soil protection measures to prevent soil loss by water

erosion are in the first place required for areas with

perennial crops. Examples for such measures are terracing,

mulching or green cover between the rows (where sufficient

water is available);

• semi-natural grasslands are treated with high priority

because of the multiple pressures from agriculture

(including practices such as conversion into crop, reseeding,

drainage, abandonment, high fertilization, and high stocking

densities) and their high value for biodiversity and landscape

protection.

Introduction

Assessing the risks from agriculture to the environment is a

relatively new field of research. Traditionally environmental

risk assessment focuses on the effects of a deteriorated or

polluted environment on human health. With the increasing

awareness of the environmental impacts of agricultural

practices and the need to take policy measures to counteract

them, the need for risk assessments has grown. The project

that led to this publication is a contribution to risk

assessment that focuses on the risks for the environment,

looked at from a European perspective.

The current report presents the outcome of the project

‘Environmental Risk Assessment for European Agriculture’

or ‘EnRisk’. The European Union’s Fifth Framework

Programme for Research, Technological Development and

Demonstration Activities funds the EnRisk project as a

follow-up to the ELISA project (Environmental Indicators for

Sustainable Agriculture, Fourth Framework Programme,

FAIR-CT97-3448; Wascher, 2000a), both of which have been

coordinated by ECNC-European Centre for Nature

Conservation.

The aim of the EnRisk project is to provide scientifically

sound support to national and international agri-

environmental policy by:

• investigating the role of risk assessment for five

environmental themes (soil erosion, nutrient enrichment,

pesticide use, biodiversity, landscape) as a tool for policy

implementation;

• reviewing and interpreting existing environmental and

socio-economic information and its effectiveness for policy

objectives;

• identifying environmentally sensitive areas and risk zones

in Europe;

• testing the reliability of European information for

assessing sustainable agricultural land use by comparing it

with regional case studies;

• providing recommendations for future assessments and

policy implementation.

Throughout the project duration it has become clear, as is

demonstrated in this report, that the aim to provide policy

recommendations with the intention to influence agricultural

policy to the benefit of the environment was somewhat over

ambitious. The reason for this is that the scientific state of

affairs for environmental risk assessment at a large scale

requires much scientific and technical development. Instead

the focus was on technical and methodological issues and

the feasibility of environmental risk assessment at the

European scale.

Therefore, the questions that the EnRisk project aims to

answer are of a more methodological nature, such as:

• Can environmental risk assessment (ERA) be used as a

decision support tool for agricultural policy at the European

scale?

• Are the current sets of agri-environmental indicators

(AEIs) and agricultural and environmental data suitable for

the purpose of European ERA and to identify environmental

risk zones?

• What needs to be done to fill gaps in indicators, data,

knowledge or expertise, if needed?

• What policy decision can be taken on the basis of European

ERA for agriculture?

It should be clear from the outset that this project does not

geographically delimit specific areas in Europe that are of

higher risk to certain agricultural pressures. Rather, it gives

an indication of broad regions with potentially higher risks.

12

13

More importantly, the project has devised a methodology that

can be used for more specific risk assessments if data

availability and quality is improved.

Chapter 1 of this publication provides a general presentation

of the background to the project: the relationship between

agriculture and the environment, agri-environmental

policies, agri-environmental indicators and the method used

in the EnRisk project. Chapter 2 contains the results of the

European phase of the project, in which environmental risks

have been assessed at a continental scale. For each of the

five environmental themes a description is given of the used

data sets, the method, results and interpretation. The

chapter ends with a section that integrates the separate

environmental themes while relating the identified risks to

farm practices. Chapter 3 summarizes the results from case

studies that were undertaken to test the methodology, to

refine findings or to illustrate other issues. The findings of

the European and case study research are reviewed in

Chapter 4, which leads to the study’s conclusions in Chapter

5 and recommendations in Chapter 6.

14 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agriculture and the environment

15

Environmental risk assessment and agriculture

1.1 Agriculture and the environmentSince its origin in the Near East some 10,000 years ago

agriculture has had impacts on the environment. These

impacts resulted from the conversion of what was before

‘wild’ land that was the result of purely natural ecological

processes into areas for cropping and raising livestock. This

conversion has always involved a number of human inputs,

ranging from cutting or burning of forest, the mechanical

ploughing of the land, the sowing of desired crops, input of

nutrients and – more recently – chemical products such as

artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

Until the Middle Ages the intensity and extent with which

agriculture was practised was at a relatively low level, due to

low human population size and therefore low demand and to

the state of development of agricultural practices. Since that

time, and especially since the 19th century, both agricultural

intensity and extent have rapidly increased worldwide.

Detailed overviews of the development of agriculture

throughout human history have been described elsewhere

(e.g. Nowicki, 1997).

It has been recognized that two opposite processes are

influencing the environmental impact of agriculture:

intensification and marginalization/abandonment (Baldock et

al., 1996). Agriculture can have both negative and positive

impacts on the environment (OECD, 1997; Delbaere, 2002).

1

On the positive side examples are mainly with the effect of

small-scale and low intensity farming practices on the

increased variation in habitat types and their associated

species diversity. This has led to local increase of biodiversity

value in many places in Europe. On the negative side, for

example, the high levels of pesticide input on large parcels

has led to surface and groundwater pollution, with

successive negative impacts on economy (e.g. high

purification costs), biodiversity and human health.

Whether or not an impact of a trend in agriculture

(intensification or extensification) has negative effects

depends on the baseline situation of a given (agro)-

ecosystem. For example, starting from a high nature value

farmland area that has developed through century-long low

intensity farming practices an increase in intensity of

fertilizer use or an increase of scale will most likely have

negative effects on biodiversity.

On the other hand, as indicated above, an area that has never

been farmed and that by nature has poor environmental

conditions (low nutrient levels, low water levels) may benefit

from some form of agricultural use which might lead to

reduced risk for soil erosion, desertification or to higher local

biodiversity levels.

Figure 1 illustrates this baseline-dependent effect for the

impact of agricultural intensification on biodiversity.

With over half of Europe’s land area being used for

agriculture, this is clearly the most dominant and impacting

land use type. The European Environment Agency (EEA, 2000)

states that ‘Agriculture remains a major source of pressure

on the environment … becoming even more intensive and

specialized.’ Areas of general concern include:

• emissions of pollutants, particularly greenhouse gases,

and fertilizer run-off into water systems;

• lower population levels of both rare and once-common

wildlife species, particularly birds as indicator species;

• loss of traditional landscapes due either to simplification

(e.g. removal of field boundaries, more monoculture) or to

abandonment (desertification) or degradation (unused

terracing, farm buildings, etc.).

Policies have been developed at national and international

levels (see next section) to regulate agriculture, including for

environmental benefits. However, with the diversity of

environmental conditions in Europe the environmental

impacts from agriculture are regionally different and require

a regional approach. The EnRisk project aims to provide a

tool for identifying those regions in Europe that are more

sensitive to agricultural pressures and that are at risk of

further environmental deterioration. This identification of

regional differences will help policymakers at the European

level set priorities for implementing agri-environmental

measures, focusing on those regions that are at highest

environmental risk.

Figure 1 General relationship between agricultural intensity and biodiversity value

Source: adapted from EEA, 2004a

Intensity of agriculture

Bio

dive

rsity

16 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agriculture and the environment / Agri-environmental policies in Europe

1716 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agriculture and the environment / Agri-environmental policies in Europe

1.2 Agri-environmental policies in EuropeSince 1992, with the MacSharry reform of the European Union

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), environmental

considerations have increasingly been integrated into

agricultural policy throughout the European Union (EU). This

reform for the first time included environmental conditions

related to agricultural policies, clustered in the ‘accompanying

measures’. Especially the accompanying measures in Council

Regulation (EEC) 2078/92 on agri-environmental measures

were a turning point in EU agricultural policy. It had affected

20% of the EU’s agricultural area in 1999 (CEC, 1999a). The

1992 reform of the CAP reduced market and price support

measures, and a system of direct payments was introduced to

compensate farmers for the loss of income. Such a system

included payments on a per hectare basis for the production of

cereals, oilseed and protein crops, as well as for beef, sheep

and goats (on a per headage basis).

A second major reform round of the CAP was linked to the

EU’s Agenda 2000 discussions, which were agreed in March

1999 in Berlin. One of the main concerns driving the reform of

the CAP in this round was the forthcoming enlargement of the

EU with the then potentially 13 new Member States as well as

the forthcoming negotiations to liberalize agricultural trade.

Continuing the CAP in its form of 2001 with 28 Member States

would be extremely expensive (Lowe & Brouwer, 2000).

However, during these reform discussions stronger

integration of environmental concerns into agricultural policy

was also envisaged. This resulted amongst others in the shift

of aid for crop output to direct area payments and the

increases in headage support payments that benefited organic

producers. Cross-compliance environmental measures –

attaching environmental conditions to the receipt of

agricultural support payments – in Article 3 of the Common

Rules Regulation 1259/1999, as well as in the Rural

Development Regulation 1257/1999, are other major

environmental achievements of this reform. The latter is

called the ‘second pillar’ of agricultural policy, the first one

relating to market support measures. The types of measures

that may be taken under Article 3 of the Common Rules

Regulation are threefold:

• support in return for agri-environmental commitments;

• general mandatory requirements;

• specific environmental requirements constituting a

condition for direct payments (i.e. cross-compliance).

The mid-term review of the CAP (COM(2002) 394, CEC, 2002a),

as presented by Agriculture Commissioner Fischler in July

2002, contained the basis for a stronger environmental

component for agricultural policy. Multifunctionality of

agriculture (production of environmental, socio-cultural and

economic services other than food and fibre production) is

becoming a key issue in the reforms. External reasons for

such a reform included negotiations on a new agricultural

agreement within the World Trade Organization (WTO),

enlargement of the EU, agreements of Agenda 21 for a

sustainable development and the need to respond to the

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Also, domestic

arguments became evident to reform agricultural policy,

including consumer pressure reducing confidence in the

safety of meat products, negative impacts of agricultural

policy on environment and animal welfare, and the

consideration of ecological and social benefits of agriculture.

Following the reforms from June 2003, Member States shall

define, either at national or regional level, minimum

requirements for good agricultural and environmental

practices. A framework for good agricultural and

environmental conditions needs to be implemented,

considering standards on soil erosion, soil organic matter, soil

structure and to ensure a minimum level of maintenance and

avoid the deterioration of habitats (e.g. protection of

permanent pasture, retention of landscape features and

avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on

agricultural land). The CAP reform is implemented by way of

three Commission Regulations: (EC) 796/2004 on cross-

compliance, controls and modulation; (EC) 795/2004 on Single

Farm Payment; and (EC) 2237/2003 on direct support

schemes.

In the following sections more specific policies on the topics

that are dealt with within EnRisk are described. Before doing

so, it is worth mentioning here that the EU also has a Directive

that specifically deals with environmental risk assessments

(93/67/EEC). However, this Risk Assessment Directive deals

with risks from specific substances to man and the

environment (as notified in Council Directive 67/548/EEC) and

has therefore a different focus than the EnRisk project.

1.2.1 Policy focused on nutrient enrichmentNutrient enrichment by nitrates and phosphorus is a high

priority in Europe. Contamination of both surface and

groundwater and soils is a serious problem in parts of

Europe. Standards for the collection, treatment and

discharge of urban wastewater and wastewater from some

industrial sectors are defined in the Urban Waste Water

Directive (91/271/EEC). Main sources of eutrophication are

farming, industry, sewage systems and urban wastewater

treatment plants. Limit values are specified in the Directive

with discharges to sensitive areas where nitrogen and/or phos-

phorus removal is prescribed. Major reductions need to be

achieved in case total phosphorus discharge from urban

wastewater treatment plants to sensitive areas exceeds 2 mg P

per litre (for agglomerations between 10,000 and 100,000 pop-

ulation equivalents (p.e.)) and 1 mg P per litre (at least 100,000

p.e.). Requirements are also formulated for discharge of nitro-

gen exceeding 10 mg N per litre (at least 100,000 p.e.) and 15

mg N per litre (10,000–100,000 p.e.). In Poland, Belgium (main-

ly in Flanders) and the United Kingdom, phosphorus levels

exceed 0.5 mg P per litre in more than half of the rivers. Also,

the highest nitrogen levels are found in rivers in the United

Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium

(Flanders), Luxembourg, Poland, the Czech Republic and

Bulgaria (Kristensen & Hansen, 1994). Here, the concentration

exceeds 2.5 mg N per litre in more than half of the rivers.

In addition to the Waste Water Directive, the Nitrates

Directive (91/676/EEC) also adopts measures to reduce and

further prevent pollution of water for drinking water pur-

poses from agricultural sources. The Nitrates Directive re-

quires the application of Good Agricultural Practice to be

applied with mandatory measures to be adopted in regions

that are designated as nitrate vulnerable zones. More re-

cently, the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) requires

the achievement of good chemical and ecological status in all

surface waters and good chemical status including trend

reversal in all groundwater. Agriculture is an important

source of pollution, which needs to be controlled to achieve

the objectives of the Nitrates Directive and the Water

Framework Directive.

1.2.2 Soil erosion policySoil protection has become a major concern for EU politics in

the last few years. In 2001 the European Commission

adopted a proposal ‘Environment 2010: Our Future, Our

Choice’ which, amongst other areas, emphasized the

importance of soil. In 2002 the Commission launched a soil

protection strategy placing soil on the same level with water

and air (CEC, 2002b). Erosion was seen as one of the major

problems across the EU in that context.

As a first step in the development of an encompassing EU

policy to protect soils against erosion and pollution, the

Commission has published a Communication (COM(2002)

179, CEC, 2002c) ‘Towards a Thematic Strategy for Soil

Protection’, which is the first occasion on which the

Commission has addressed soil protection for its own sake.

In that Communication soil erosion is identified as one of the

most severe soil degradation processes in Europe. In

response to the Communication the European Parliament

(2003) released a resolution on the Thematic Strategy for Soil

Protection, in which the Commission is called ‘to reverse the

alarming trend towards erosion’ and to ‘provide a methodical

assessment and mapping of European soil’, based on

principles that ‘should be designed to prevent soil erosion’.

The Commission is urged to draw up a scientific soil

catalogue, which should include erosion processes.

Recently a Technical Working Group on Erosion as one

component of a European thematic strategy for soil

protection was established and seven work packages were

created with the following objectives (Düwel, 2004):

• pressures and drivers causing erosion in Europe;

• nature and extent of soil erosion in Europe;

• impacts of soil erosion;

• measures and policy instruments to address soil erosion

(prevention and remediation);

• link with organic matter and contamination;

• desertification;

• monitoring soil erosion in Europe.

1.2.3 Policies on pesticide useTwo Directives affect directly the use of pesticides in Europe.

The placing on the market is regulated at the Community

level by the Council Directive 91/414/EEC, while the Council

Directive 79/117/EEC prohibits the placing on the market of

pesticides containing certain active substances. The

Directives on Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) on food and

feed stuffs, the European Directive on Drinking Water

(80/778/EEC, amended by Directive 98/83/EC) and the Water

Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) also aim at risk preven-

tion and risk reduction, but are placed more at the end-of-life

stage of pesticides.

In 2002 the Commission started a communication process to

the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and

Social Committee: ‘Towards a Thematic Strategy on the

Sustainable Use of Pesticides’ (COM (2002) 349, CEC, 2002d).

The main objectives of the Thematic Strategy as defined by

the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme are:

• to minimize the hazards and risks to health and environ-

ment from the use of pesticides;

• to improve controls on the use and distribution of pesticides;

18 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental policies in Europe

1918 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental policies in Europe

• to reduce the levels of harmful active substances including

through substituting the most dangerous with safer,

including non-chemical, alternatives;

• to encourage the use of low input or pesticide free cultiva-

tion among others through raising users’ awareness, promot-

ing the use of codes of good practices, and promoting consid-

eration of the possible application of financial instruments;

• to establish a transparent system for reporting and

monitoring progress made in fulfilling the objectives of the

strategy including the development of suitable indicators.

1.2.4 Policies on agriculture and biodiversityWithin the CAP it is primarily the second pillar that allows

Member States to implement measures to reduce the

impacts of agriculture on biodiversity. Of these measures

two are of specific importance to high nature value (HNV)

farmland (EEA, 2004a):

• agri-environment schemes as part of the revised rural

development regulation (1783/2003, replacing 1257/1999)

allow for support to farmers for environmentally favourable

measures;

• less favoured area payments to compensate farmers for

social or environmental constraints of the area they work in.

When applied properly they may provide an effective way to

prevent abandonment of (HNV) farmland.

A policy plan that has been designed specifically for the

integration of biodiversity concerns within agriculture is the

Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) for Agriculture (CEC, 2001a) as

part of the European Community Biodiversity Strategy (ECBS;

CEC, 1998). This Action Plan defines specific activities to

achieve the objectives for agriculture as defined in the ECBS.

The Strategy is the EU’s response to the global CBD.

The basic principles for the BAP for agriculture have been

formulated in the Commission’s document ‘Directions to-

wards sustainable agriculture’ (CEC, 1999b). While giving a

clear indication of what is at stake in the relation between

agriculture and biodiversity, this document formulated mea-

sures that may benefit biodiversity. The most important ones

are included in the rural development measures (e.g. pre-

serving the natural heritage to increase tourist potential of

rural areas), which include the agri-environment measures

(e.g. set-aside) and the compensatory allowances in less

favoured areas (mentioned above).

Two EU Directives that are of most importance to biodiversity

conservation are the Birds (79/409/EEC) and Habitats (92/43/

EEC) Directives. Together they include the obligation for

countries to designate areas as part of the Natura 2000 net-

work of protected areas. The Habitats Directive lists 198 hab-

itat types of Community interest in its Annex 1, of which 28

depend on extensive agricultural management (EEA, 2004a).

At the pan-European level the Pan-European Biological and

Landscape Diversity Strategy (PEBLDS; Council of Europe et

al., 1996) provides the most important policy framework, in-

cluding for the relation between agriculture and biodiversity.

Within the remit of PEBLDS the Kyiv Resolution on

Biodiversity, adopted at the fifth ministerial conference

‘Environment for Europe’ in May 2003 (ECE/CEP/108), in-

cludes a target on agriculture and biodiversity which says:

‘By 2006, the identification, using agreed common

criteria, of all high nature value areas in agricultural

ecosystems in the pan-European region will be

complete. By 2008, a substantial proportion of these

areas will be under biodiversity-sensitive management

by using appropriate mechanisms such as rural

development instruments, agri-environmental

programmes and organic agriculture, to inter alia

support their economic and ecological viability.

‘By 2008, financial subsidy and incentive schemes for

agriculture in the pan-European region will take the

conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in

consideration.’

This target derives from recommendations that were formu-

lated at the ‘High-level pan-European conference on agricul-

ture and biodiversity’ that was organized by the Council of

Europe with the United Nations Environment Programme

(UNEP) and the French Government in Paris in June 2002.

Amongst others the participants to this conference recom-

mended the further identification of HNV areas in agricul-

tural ecosystems in order to apply appropriate management

practices for the conservation of agro-biodiversity.

A draft action plan (STRA-CO (2004) 3b) to achieve the target

mentioned above was approved by the Bureau of the PEBLDS

Council in May 2004.

Finally, at the global level a policy focusing on agriculture

and biodiversity is embedded in the activities of the CBD. A

programme of work on agricultural biological diversity is

being implemented. However, the focus of this work pro-

gramme is on genetic resources for food and agriculture,

which have not been covered by the EnRisk project.

1.2.5 European landscape policiesThe main focus of landscape conservation in Europe has

traditionally been oriented towards scenic beauty, natural

and cultural heritage, traditional land management,

historical features and recreational functions. In light of the

growing responsibilities of European institutions in the field

of sustainable development and human welfare, landscapes

receive increasing policy and research attention for offering

integrative concepts as well as operational tools for bridging

the gap between environmental and socio-economic

objectives (Wascher, 2000b). As a consequence, traditional

conservation approaches such as the UNESCO Cultural

Landscapes initiative and the European Landscape

Convention (Council of Europe, 2000) co-exist with integrated

policies such as in agriculture (Agenda 2000) and in spatial

planning (European Spatial Development Perspective

(ESDP)).

In 1992 the Convention Concerning the Protection of the

World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage

Convention, adopted by the General Conference of the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) in 1972) became the first international legal

instrument to recognize and protect World Heritage Cultural

Landscapes. The inclusion of cultural landscapes has

significant consequences for:

• the recognition of intangible values and for the heritage of

local communities;

• the importance of protecting biological diversity by

maintaining cultural diversity;

• the management ensuring the conservation of cultural

properties or landscapes;

• the interpretation, presentation, and management of the

properties.

The European Landscape Convention is an initiative of the

Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of

Europe. This Convention (also ‘Florence Convention’) aims at

protection, management and planning of all landscapes, and

to raise awareness for the values of a living landscape. In fact

it stresses the right of the people to identify themselves with

‘their’ landscape, and the right of the landscape to be taken

care of. Although the Convention is a relatively weak policy

document in terms of legal obligations and power, it

represents a real concern with the threatened landscapes of

Europe and a substantial appeal to the Member States to

establish an active landscape policy.

Rural Development Plans within the framework of the EU

Agenda 2000 provide the basis for regional monitoring

schemes that take into account the carrying capacity of the

region – issues of high relevance for landscapes. The second

pillar includes a relatively small proportion of total CAP

funds, but the decoupling process has opened agricultural

policies to overall rural development and could facilitate

turning some of the natural handicaps of mountains and

other Less Favoured Areas (LFA) into advantages: for

instance, cultural heritage, landscape, high-quality products,

diversification (Nordregio, 2004). The dominant objective for

LFA policy is to maintain farm management in less-favoured

areas based on environmental principles and provision of

other functions beyond food production.

Agri-environmental measures remain mandatory and are

simplified. The budget allows only for expansion at the rate

of inflation to 2006. Agri-environmental measures have yet to

cover a large proportion of tradional and cultural landscapes,

especially in countries with a large share of marginal farming

systems. The new ‘Article 16’ of the Rural Development

Regulation, which allows compensation payments in Natura

2000 sites, for example, is of special interest for future

landscape management according to environmental

standards.

The impacts on landscape quality that have been associated

with agricultural intensification include (Stapleton et al., 2000):

• removal of field boundaries (which also includes loss of

habitats for flora and fauna);

• destruction of archaeological monuments; and

• detrimental impacts on the environment such as pollution

of river water, eutrophication of lakes, and significant

contributions to methane gas emissions.

Different priorities and concerns of the first wave of agri-

environment programmes have been identified at national

and sub-national level by the project ‘Implementation and

effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes established

under Regulation 2078/92’ (FAIR1 CT95-274; Schramek et al.,

1999). These comprise:

• a focus on nature and landscape protection and on

mechanisms for changing agricultural land management;

• the economic support of marginal agricultural activities

threatened by the abandonment of farming and

compensation for natural handicaps is an important part of

the programme in places such as southern France, parts of

Spain, Portugal and much of Greece;

• farm-based pollution is a concern in a number of countries

such as Germany and Denmark;

• agricultural modernization and structural reform has been

an important goal in southern European countries in particular.

20 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental policies in Europe / Agri-environmental indicators

2120 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental policies in Europe / Agri-environmental indicators

1.3 Agri-environmental indicators

There is increased awareness of the environmental impacts

from agriculture. Agri-environmental measures are being

introduced and the Cardiff process advocates the integration

of environmental concerns into sectoral policies. These

processes lead to a growing need for indicators that help

simplify and communicate the often complex relationships

between agricultural pressures and environmental impacts.

Indicators that are designed or used for this particular

relationship are called agri-environmental indicators,

abbreviated AEIs.

The development of AEIs in many cases is structured

according to the DPSIR framework (Driving Force – Pressure

– State – Impact – Response) as used by the EEA. This

framework is also adopted within the EnRisk project, as it

provides a useful way of relating causes to effects and

responses in a policy-relevant way.

Many initiatives are developing AEIs for specific purposes

(see e.g. Brouwer & Crabtree, 1999 and EEA, 2004b for an

overview), of which some of most relevance to EnRisk are

described below. The full indicator lists from these initiatives

are included in Table 1 to 4.

1.3.1 The ELISA projectThe research project ELISA (Environmental Indicators for

Sustainable Agriculture), funded by the EU’s Fourth

Framework Programme (FAIR-CT97-3448) and coordinated

by ECNC, proposed a list of state and pressure indicators

(Table 3 and in Section 1.5.4) for selected environmental

components: soil, water, biodiversity and landscape

(Wascher, 2000a). These indicators had been proposed on the

basis of an analysis of their relevance, reliability and

feasibility for specific topics. The ELISA project led to a

specific recommendation to develop and test agricultural risk

indicators to define zones of high risk for negative

environmental impacts. This recommendation led to the

development of the EnRisk project, which is a follow-up to

ELISA.

1.3.2 European Union and the IRENA projectWith the change in agricultural policy in the European Union

as described in Section 1.2 the EU also started developing a

set of AEIs. Of particular importance in this respect are the

two Commission communications that list a set of indicators

as well as the data needs to underpin them: ‘Indicators for

the Integration of Environmental Concerns into the Common

Agricultural Policy’ (COM(2000) 20 final; CEC, 2000) and

‘Statistical information needed for Indicators to monitor the

Integration of Environmental concerns into the Common

Agricultural Policy’ (COM(2001) 144 final; CEC, 2001a).

These indicators (Table 1) have been proposed for the

Commission to report on the integration of environmental

concerns into Community sectoral policies. A joint project

with EC services (Directorates-General Agriculture,

Environment, Eurostat (European Statistical Office), Joint

Research Centre (JRC) and EEA) has been set up to develop

and compile the indicators as defined in the Commission

communications, to provide related agri-environmental data

sets and to produce a first indicator report and assessment

(EEA, 2004c). This IRENA project (Indicator Reporting on the

integration of Environmental Concerns into Agricultural

Policy) is ended in December 2004.

An additional EC project in support of providing the statistical

information for the above-mentioned indicators is LUCAS

(Land Use/Cover Area Frame Statistical Survey). In a stepped

approach, this project focuses more on territorial

components and the use of spatial data sets, such as Corine

Land Cover (CLC) (EEA, 2001a; Galego, 2002).

Table 1 Agri-environmental indicators as identified by the European Commission COM(2001) 144 final for assessing

the integration of environmental concerns into the agricultural sector

DPSIR reference No Indicator

Responses Public policy 1 Area under agri-environment support

2 Good farming practice

3 Environmental targets

4 Nature protection

Market signals 5.1 Organic producer prices

5.2 Agricultural income of organic farmers

Technology and skills 6 Holders’ training levels

Attitudes 7 Organic farming

Driving forces Input use 8 Fertilizer consumption

9 Pesticide consumption

10 Water use

11 Energy use

Land use 12 Topological change

13 Cropping/livestock patterns

Management 14 Management practices

Trends 15 Intensification/extensification

16 Diversification

17 Marginalization

Pressures Pollution 18 Surface nutrient balance

19 CH4 emissions

20 Pesticide soil contamination

21 Water contamination

Resource depletion 22 Ground water abstraction/water stress

23 Soil erosion

24 Land cover change

25 Genetic diversity

Benefits 26 High nature value areas

27 Renewable energy sources

State Biodiversity 28 Species richness

Natural resources 29 Soil quality

30 Nitrates/pesticides in water

31 Ground water levels

Landscape 32 Land use matrix

Impact Habitats and biodiversity 33 Habitat and biodiversity

Natural resources 34.1 GHG emissions

34.2 Nitrate contamination

34.3 Water use

Landscape diversity 35 Agricultural and global diversity

Source: adapted from CEC, 2001b

22 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental indicators

23

Table 2 Complete list of OECD agri-environmental indicators

I. Agriculture in the broader economic, social and environmental context

1. Contextual information and indicators 2. Farm financial resources

Agricultural GDP

Agricultural output

Farm employment

Farmer age/gender distribution

Farmer education

Number of farms

Agricultural support

Land use

- Stock of agricultural land

- Change in agricultural land

- Agricultural land use

Farm income

Agri-environmental expenditure

- Public and private agri-environmental

expenditure

- Expenditure on agri-environmental

research

II. Farm management and the environment

1. Farm management

Whole farm management

- Environmental whole farm

management plans

- Organic farming

Nutrient management

- Nutrient management plans

- Soil tests

Pest management

- Use of non-chemical pest control

methods

- Use of integrated pest management

Soil and land management

- Soil cover

- Land management practices

Irrigation and water management

- Irrigation technology

III. Use of farm inputs and natural resources

1. Nutrient use 2. Pesticide use and risks 3. Water use

Nitrogen balance

Nitrogen efficiency

Pesticide use

Pesticide risk

Water use intensity

Water use efficiency

- Water use technical efficiency

- Water use economic efficiency

Water stress

IV. Environmental impacts of agriculture

1. Soil quality 3. Land conservation 4. Greenhouse gases

Risk of soil erosion by water

Risk of soil erosion by wind

2. Water quality

Water quality risk indicator

Water quality state indicator

5. Biodiversity 6. Wildlife habitats 7. Landscape

Genetic diversity

Species diversity

- Wild species

- Non-native species

Ecosystem diversity

Intensively farmed agricultural habitats

Semi-natural agricultural habitats

Uncultivated natural habitats

Habitat matrix

Structure of landscapes

- Environmental features and

land use patterns

- Man-made objects (cultural features)

Landscape management

Landscape costs and benefits

Source: adapted from OECD, 2001

1.3.3 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD) has developed AEIs for its member

countries to measure the environmental performance of

agriculture. While focusing on policy analysis, the OECD

indicators are developed using the DSR framework (Driving

force – State – Response). Agri-environmental indicators for

environmental impacts of agriculture are developed and

produced for soil quality, water quality, land conservation,

greenhouse gases, biodiversity, wildlife habitats and

landscape (Table 2; OECD, 2001).

Within the process of developing AEIs the OECD has

conducted specific studies and consultations on indicators

for selected components, such as for biodiversity (OECD,

2003) and landscape (NIJOS, 2003).

1.4 Environmental risk assessmentERA is part of a wider process of environmental risk analysis.

Risk analysis is an approach including tools for identifying

and comparing environmental costs and benefits of decision

options (Cornell University, 2004). It includes two major

components: risk assessment and risk management with

stakeholder involvement being embedded in between and

throughout these stages.

Environmental risk assessment on the one hand is a

scientific process. It is a key tool to help judging where the

balance should be between environmental protection and

economic and technological development.

A general framework for ERA includes a number of key

steps, which are illustrated in Figure 2.

Risk management on the other hand is a policy process that

follows on from the results from risk assessment and that

requires judgement of importance and taking of priorities

and choices to prevent or reduce certain risks. The EnRisk

project considers the risk assessment steps, of which the

principles are applied to agricultural policy.

Traditionally ERA has a strong focus on risks related to

ecotoxicology and human health. Also ecological risk

assessment (EcoRA), although focusing on living organisms

in the variety of ecosystems, has concentrated on risks from

chemicals and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

(Fairman et al., 1998). This means that the type of risk

assessment that is undertaken in the current project is

different and has not been developed very well to date,

especially where it regards risks to biodiversity and

landscapes. An effort to address this gap is made by EnRisk.

For the current project environmental risk assessment is

defined as ‘the examination of risks resulting from

agricultural land use practices that threaten ecosystems,

wildlife and physical components of the landscape’. The

steps carried out as part of the EnRisk environmental risk

assessment are described in more detail in Section 1.5.

The steps that have been taken address a number of

questions that ensure that the outputs from an

environmental risk assessment help in decision-making

(adapted from Defra, 2000):

• What impacts from agriculture to the environment may

occur?

• How harmful are these impacts to the environment?

• How likely is it that these impacts will occur?

• How frequently and where will these impacts occur?

24 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental indicators / Environmental risk assessment

2524 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Agri-environmental indicators / Environmental risk assessment

• How much confidence can be placed in the results of the

risk assessment?

• What are the critical data gaps and can these gaps be

filled?

• Are further iterations to the risk assessment needed?

Given the geographical scope of EnRisk (Section 1.5.3) only

some of these questions will be answered. Unlike with a

particular development project on a certain site, it would be

over ambitious to aim at identifying how likely it is that

harmful impacts of agriculture as a whole to the environment

as a whole will occur at a certain frequency and location and

how much confidence one could place on these findings.

Instead, this project focuses on certain aspects of the

complex cause-effect relationships between agriculture and

the environment. For example, what are the likely impacts of

high pesticide use on bird species that are associated to

arable land? Or, where are the areas in Europe with the

highest risk for significant soil loss due to water erosion

caused by agriculture?

Figure 2 Framework of environmental risk assessment

Source: Defra, 2000

Tiered risk assessment

Problem formulation

Risk management

Collect data, iterate processes and monitor

Tier 3 Detailed quantitativerisk assessment*

Hazard identification

* Stages within each tier ofrisk assessment

Identification of consequences

Magnitude of consequences

Probability of consequences

Significance of the risk

Tier 1 Risk screening*

Options appraisal

Economics

Social issues

Technology

Management

Risk prioritisation

Tier 2 Generic quantitativerisk assessment*

1.5 Method applied in the EnRisk project1.5.1 EnRisk objectivesThe EnRisk project was designed as a follow-up to the ELISA

project (Section 1.3.1). In general terms it aims at

formulating science-based recommendations to ensure a

viable and sustainable agriculture that is economically

competitive on a global market.

More specifically the EnRisk objectives are to:

• investigate the role of risk assessment for five

environmental themes (soil erosion, nutrient enrichment,

pesticide use, biodiversity loss, landscape change) as a tool

for policy implementation;

• review and interpret existing environmental and socio-

economic information and its effectiveness for policy

objectives;

• identify environmentally sensitive areas and risk zones in

Europe;

• test the reliability of European information for assessing

sustainable agricultural land use by comparing it with

regional case studies;

• provide recommendations for future assessments and

policy implementation.

From the outset, EnRisk focuses on five environmental

themes: soil erosion, nutrient enrichment, pesticide use,

biodiversity and landscapes. This ensures the right focus to

consider cause-effect relationship between these themes,

with agriculture as the main driving force.

1.5.2 Scientific added valueThe EnRisk project adds value and innovation to science in the

following way:

• agri-environmental indicators that have been proposed and

developed to date are tested for the concrete purpose of

environmental risk assessment. This provides insight in their

suitability for this purpose;

• the type of integrated environmental risk assessment,

linking five themes and their interrelations and the cause-

effect relations with agricultural land use practices, that is

done by EnRisk has never been carried out before;

• the focus of 'conventional' risk assessment is on

ecotoxicology and human health, whereas EnRisk looks at

ecological risk assessment by assessing risk to ecosystems

and their components;

• assessing risks from agriculture to biodiversity and

landscapes has never been tried before in Europe and will need

innovative thinking when incorporating aspects of vulnerability,

probability of risk, and acceptable threshold levels.

1.5.3 Geographical scopeThe geographical region covered by the EnRisk project

consists of the 25 European Union (EU) Member States, the

three EU Accession Countries, Norway and Switzerland. For

practical reasons the Balkan countries and the part of Russia

southwest of Lithuania have been included where appropriate.

This brings the total number of countries covered to 34:

Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,

Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,

Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,

Portugal, Romania, Russia (Kaliningrad region), Serbia and

Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,

Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The geographical area

covered does not include overseas territories.

1.5.4 Common frameworkThe EnRisk project was designed in two phases: the first

phase considered environmental risk assessment at the

European scale, the second phase looked at local or regional

case studies.

For both phases of the project, the five environmental

themes covered by EnRisk focused on soil erosion, pesticide

use, nutrient enrichment, biodiversity and landscapes. The

method applied for each of these themes is described in the

following pages.

In general terms, the approach followed is visualized in

Figure 3.

Step 1: Formulating the problemThe overall problem under view in the EnRisk project is

formulated as follows: European agriculture affects water,

soil, biodiversity and landscapes, which can reduce its own

sustainability (economically, socially and environmentally).

There is a need for objective and geographically referenced

measures that policymakers can use to achieve more

sustainable agriculture.

Based on the objectives as listed in Section 1.5.1. the

following research questions depict the problem in more

specific terms:

• Can ERA be used as a decision support tool for agricultural

policy at the European scale?

• Are the current sets of AEIs and agricultural and

environmental data suitable for the purpose of European ERA

26 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Method applied in the EnRisk project

2726 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Method applied in the EnRisk project

and to identify environmental risk zones?

• What needs to be done to fill gaps in indicators, data,

knowledge or expertise, if needed?

• What policy decision can be taken on the basis of European

ERA for agriculture?

Step 2: Describing the baselineFor each of the themes considered by EnRisk a baseline or

reference situation is described from which risk assessment

will start. This baseline is described and quantified using

state indicators: indicators that can be used to measure the

state of a theme at a certain point in time. For each

environmental theme covered by EnRisk state indicators have

been selected and defined. The indicators resulting from the

ELISA project (Table 3) have been assessed on their suitability

for EnRisk. Where necessary these have been complemented

with other sets for each of the environmental themes (Section

1.3). Given the complexity of the environmental themes under

view it has not been possible to select one indicator to reflect

the state of an entire environmental theme. Instead themes

have been split up in as little components as needed to

demonstrate the developed methodology (see Chapter 2 for

the indicators that have been used).

Step 3: Screening the pressures and risksA second component in describing the cause-effect

relationships between agriculture and the environment is to

identify the pressures (in ERA usually called hazards) from

agriculture on soil, water, biodiversity and landscape. For this

purpose pressure indicators were selected for each

environmental theme. Again the set of indicators as

developed in the ELISA project formed the starting point for

EnRisk (Table 4). Because from the outset EnRisk focused on

five environmental themes, the pressures considered by the

project have been restricted to these themes. Basically, the

use of pesticides and fertilizers as well as livestock density

were the key pressures under view, with water, soil,

biodiversity and landscapes as the receptors of the pressures.

This restriction is in a way unfortunate, because EnRisk did

not cover other major pressures such as land use change

(increase of scale, abandonment). This inherently means also

that the risks considered by EnRisk are only those that relate

to the pressures selected. Chapter 2 describes the pressure

indicators that have been selected per theme.

Step 4: Identifying the data sourcesFor the selected indicators (both for state and for pressure)

European databases have been selected and collected for

producing European maps with sensitive areas for each

theme (outcome of state indicators) as well as pressure

maps. In order for databases to be useful for EnRisk the

information in the databases had to be geographically

referenced, cover as much as possible of the project’s

geographical scope, be as accurate and up-to-date as

possible and be readily accessible and free to use for this

scientific project. The principle of using best available data

has been applied throughout the project.

Key data sources for most of the environmental themes at

European level are those held by Eurostat for agricultural

data, the EEA’s environmental data sets, soil data from the

European Soil Bureau and the United Nations Food and

Agriculture Organization (FAO), species distribution data

from species atlas committees, and land cover data from

Corine. Comprehensive overviews of the databases used are

provided in the respective sections in Chapter 2.

Figure 3 Workflow model for the EnRisk project

Note: the dotted box is not part of the EnRisk process

Problem formulation

Indicator selection (state &pressure)

Mapping of risk zones

Integrating risk zones formultiple themes

Risk management / policyresponse

Data collection, processingand mapping

Identification of thresholdsfor vulnerability

Combining state,vulnerability and pressureinto risk indicators

adju

st /

focu

s

feedback process of refinement and re-assessm

ent

Table 3 Agri-environmental state indicators resulting from the ELISA project

Theme Indicator code Indicator

Soil S.1 Water erosion

S.2 Wind erosion

S.3 Soil compaction

S.4 Pesticides in soil

Water W.1 Nitrate in rivers

W.2 Nitrate in groundwater

W.3 Nitrate in drinking water

W.4 Pesticides in groundwater

W.5 Pesticides in rivers/surface waters

W.6 Groundwater level

Biodiversity B.1 Spatial complexity

B.2 Corridors and linkages between habitat types

B.3 Size/% of characteristic habitat types

B.4 Flagship species

B.5 Species richness

B.6 Species population trends

B.7 Genetic diversity in semi-natural agro-ecosystems

B.8 Genetic diversity in farm species

Landscape L.1 Biophysical adequateness of land use

L.2 Openness versus closedness

L.3 Adequateness of key cultural features

L.4 Land recognised for its scenic or scientific value

Source: Wascher, 2000a

For the European-scale assessment a 50x50 km grid

resolution was chosen for the output maps. This resolution

was chosen because of the limitation posed by the European

species distribution data, which are only available at this

resolution for Europe and which are the hardest to convert

into other resolutions. Given the coarse character of the

European assessment and the objective to identify in general

terms which broad regions of Europe can be regarded to be

of relatively higher risk to certain environmental impacts,

this resolution was regarded by the project team as the most

appropriate common denominator.

Step 5: Producing European sensitivity and pressure mapsEuropean-wide maps presenting the baseline for each theme

were produced on the basis of the selected state indicators in

step 2 and from the information held in the databases

selected in step 4. These reference maps form the basis to

refer pressures and risks to.

For each theme the baseline data were combined with

measures that express the sensitivity of the theme under

view to agricultural pressures. This required the

identification of threshold values per theme.

In addition European maps presenting the geographical

28 Environmental risk assessment and agriculture / Method applied in the EnRisk project

29

distribution and level of pressures from agriculture were

produced on the basis of the selected pressure indicators in

step 3 and their respective databases.

This step also considered how to integrate the maps

produced for the themes of soil erosion, pesticide use and

nutrient enrichment with those produced for biodiversity and

landscapes, the other two EnRisk themes. All three types of

maps (state, sensitivity and pressure) provide intermediary

products that are required to identify, by combining the

maps, the environmental risk zones per theme in Europe.

Step 6: Locating European environmental risk zonesBy overlaying the pressure maps on top of the sensitivity

maps for selected themes, a first indication is given of the

potential risk zones for the combination of the pressure and

environmental component under view. For each combination

a further refinement was carried out by adding data layers

such as the actual presence of certain land cover types or

further environmental conditions. This led to the presentation

of more actual risks per theme. Due to the lack of

prospective data on future pressure values and the lack of

historical trend data (e.g. land cover change) it has not been

possible to predict the areas of risks for future developments

in agriculture.

Step 7: Integrating environmental risk zones for multiple themesThe strength of the EnRisk project is in its integrated

approach. Risk maps for individual environmental themes

were combined into integrated risk maps. In this way, it has

been possible to identify those areas in Europe that are of

particularly high policy relevance because of their cumulated

environmental impacts from agriculture or because of the

combination of risks.

Step 8: Interpretation of resultsThe final step in the EnRisk approach is to identify why

certain areas stand out in terms of risk value. The risk maps

were compared with statistics on farm level practices so as

to find a causal relationship between what happens at the

farm and how this may impact on environmental risks. This

information then provides a basis for recommendations in

terms of agricultural practices or policies.

Table 4 Agri-environmental pressure indicators resulting from the ELISA project

Theme Indicator code Indicator

Land use intensity LU.1 Share of irrigated area

LU.2 Yield of cereals

LU.3 Share of farms with > 50% cereals

LU.4 Share of UAA in total area

LU.5 Livestock density

Nutrients N.1 N-discharge

N.2 Nitrate surplus

Pesticides P.1a Direct usage data per pesticide

P.1b Sales data per pesticide

P.1c Pesticides cost per crop

P.1d Estimated usage data per crop

P.2a+b Pesticide risk

Source: Wascher, 2000a