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Information System for Agriculture and Food Research

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ZALF Research Programme

Framework


Initiator: Funding programmes:
The competition for available space in the landscape is becoming increasingly intense. Research is required more than ever before to harmonise the diverse demands regarding the use and services of agricultural landscapes: after all, the consequences of this competition affect virtually all economic and ecological aspects of land use and rural areas. Modern landscape research should be structured so as to enable it to analyse developments, particularly under changing basic conditions, and to assess the impact of such changes. Research work undertaken at ZALF initially results in a better understanding of the interdependencies and interactions between the individual landscape compartments/systems as well as how they dovetail with social demands on the use and development of agricultural landscapes. Based on this information, the effects of various land use options on their sustainability are analysed. ZALF’s expertise in modelling agroecological systems focused e.g. on their application in North-Eastern/Central Europe, represents an indispensable basis for providing regionally-specific practical recommendations and also for accompanying research into developments. The complexity of the research topic 'agricultural landscape' and the long-term nature and partial irreversibility of the ecological, economic and socio-cultural processes taking place in the landscapes require that research is strongly oriented towards the interdependencies of the influencing factors, linked processes, highly structured systems and dynamics of the overall development. To this end, ZALF combines six institutes with the necessary disciplinary competencies and several central units which, together, cover the entire range of agricultural landscape research. The ZALF research concept embeds the issues into four long-term cross-institutional and interdisciplinary research programmes.

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Field of research:

Diversity of landscape functions

Sub-fields of research:

Sustainable Development in Rural Areas

Demands on the Sustainable Use of Landscapes

Cross-sector project Impact Assessment

Field of research:

Productivity of Landscapes

Sub-fields of research:

Cross-sector project WatEff_ZALF - Arable crop production with efficient use of water and nutrients considering changing rainfall patterns in northeast Germany

Biomass and Yield in Landscapes

Agricultural Land Use Systems and Modelling

New Land Use Systems

Grazing Systems und Ecosystem Effects

Cross-sector project Grassland in Agricultural Landscapes

Field of research:

Protection of Landscape Resources

Sub-fields of research:

Structure and Dynamics in Soil Landscapes

Water Availability and Quality of Water Bodies

Biodiversity and Landscape Functions

Landscape Resources and Climate Change

Cross-sector project CarboZALF – Carbon Dynamics of Arable Landscape Within the Context of Global Change

Cross-sector project AgroScapeLabs – Biodiversity Exploratories for Agricultural Landscapes

Field of research:

Managing Landscape Use

Sub-fields of research:

Decision Support, Information Systems and Models

Methods and Tools for Decision Support

Instruments and Institutions

Region, Communication and Process Design, Evidence

Field of research:

Programme-supporting Services

Sub-fields of research:

Services for (landscape) experiments

Research networks and platforms

Services for knowledge and information management

Innovation, transfer and entrepreneurship

Open Context – data and information objects in the context of landscape research: management, referencing, publishing, networking, reuse

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