Sustainable land management enhances ecological and economic multifunctionality under ambient and future climate

Ecosystem functions underpin the provision of ecosystem services critical to human well-being. Ecosystem multifunctionality captures the simultaneous provision of multiple functions and services. Land-use intensification and climate change threaten multifunctionality, yet stakeholders value services differently, complicating assessments of net societal impacts. This study introduces an ecological-economic framework to evaluate multifunctionality across agroecosystems, contrasting ecological measures (weighted averages of function levels reflecting preferences of farmers, local residents, environmental agencies, and tourism) with a new monetary (economic) multifunctionality measure aggregating the economic value of services to society at large. The research investigates how land management (sustainable vs intensive) and climate (ambient vs future) affect multifunctionality in grassland and cropland, and examines the role of soil biodiversity in driving multifunctionality and its potential resilience under future climate. The core research questions are: (1) How do land-use type and management intensity affect ecological and economic multifunctionality? (2) How does a realistic future climate scenario alter multifunctionality? (3) How do stakeholder weightings and economic valuation align or diverge? (4) How is soil biodiversity related to multifunctionality under ambient and future climate?

Prior studies report that land-use intensification reduces multifunctionality in croplands, whereas organic/sustainable practices tend to enhance regulating and supporting services. Climate change generally imposes net negative impacts on ecosystem services, though effects vary and may depend on stakeholder priorities. Biodiversity is a key determinant of multifunctionality, enhancing and stabilizing ecosystem processes; some studies find consistent positive biodiversity–multifunctionality relationships under both ambient and altered climates, while others suggest stronger effects under stressful conditions. Trade-offs between provisioning (e.g., yield) and regulating/supporting services (e.g., water quality, carbon storage) are recognized. Standard ecological multifunctionality indices use averaging with equal or stakeholder-based weights, but purely economic valuations can miss cultural and intrinsic values (e.g., landscape aesthetics, biodiversity). This study addresses these gaps by combining stakeholder-weighted ecological multifunctionality with an economic multifunctionality index grounded in accounting prices and willingness-to-pay concepts, to better reflect societal benefits.

Study site and design: The Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF) in Bad Lauchstädt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, hosts a split-plot field experiment (established 2013–2014) orthogonally manipulating climate (ambient vs future) and five land-use types (50 plots ~400 m², five replicates per combination). Land-use types: grasslands—intensive meadow (IM), extensive meadow (EM), extensive pasture (EP); croplands—conventional farming (CF), organic farming (OF). Sustainable management (OF, EM, EP) refrains from mineral N fertilizer and pesticides; intensive (CF, IM) applies them. Future climate treatment uses mobile shelters, side panels, and irrigation to simulate a consensus regional scenario (reduced summer precipitation by 20%, increased spring/autumn precipitation by 10%, nocturnal passive warming raising minima more strongly). Measurements: Fourteen ecosystem function proxies spanning provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural aspects were measured or derived, including yield (food/feed production), total organic soil carbon (carbon storage), nitrogen surplus (water quality impact), microbial biomass, enzyme activities (N-acetylglucosaminidase, acid phosphatase, cellulase), below- and aboveground decomposition rates (microbial-only and microbe+fauna), soil mesofauna, macrofauna and nematode diversity, and flower abundance (landscape aesthetics via image analysis). Sampling and lab protocols followed standardized methods (e.g., microbial biomass by substrate-induced respiration; enzyme assays with MUF substrates; decomposition via litterbags; nematode extraction via Baermann; diversity metrics via Shannon index). Ecological multifunctionality: For each plot, ecosystem functions were normalized and aggregated using weighted averages. Weighting scenarios reflected preferences of four stakeholder groups (farmers, local residents, environmental conservation agencies, tourism) derived from adapted survey data. Additional scenarios included equal weighting of functions and equal weighting of services. A harmonization and normalization procedure aligned survey-derived preferences with the services assessed (e.g., combining food and livestock production; introducing soil health and water quality; reclassifying biodiversity conservation as supporting). Economic multifunctionality: The economic multifunctionality value was computed as the sum of monetary values of ecosystem services: market value of food production (from yield and prices); non-market values of climate regulation (annual net soil carbon flux converted to CO₂ with 3.6 factor, multiplied by accounting price 19 €/t CO₂) and water quality (annual nitrogen surplus multiplied by 7.0 €/kg N reflecting social cost of N to surface waters). Landscape aesthetics was not monetized; biodiversity and soil health were valued via their insurance value (stabilizing effect on yield), based on statistical relationships between soil biodiversity/soil health and yield variability, and a risk premium framework assuming lognormal yields and risk aversion r = 0.25. Insurance values were derived from polynomial response surfaces of risk premium as functions of biodiversity and soil health; to avoid double counting, only stabilizing (not productivity-increasing) effects were valued. Robustness checks considered alternative prices: 280 €/t CO₂ (high SCC), 90 €/t CO₂ (ETS), and 1.9 €/kg N (groundwater). Statistical analysis: Linear mixed-effects models with land-use type and climate as fixed effects and main plot nested in climate as random effect (split-plot design). Type II ANOVA F-tests (two-sided), Tukey post hoc comparisons via estimated marginal means. Correlations among multifunctionality metrics assessed via cor.test. A linear regression related soil biodiversity (aggregated index of belowground taxa) to ecological multifunctionality (excluding biodiversity-related functions in the response to avoid circularity), stratified by climate scenario.

- Ecological multifunctionality: Sustainable management generally increased ecological multifunctionality relative to intensive management across most stakeholder weighting scenarios in both grasslands and croplands. An exception occurred for grasslands under farmers’ weighting, where intensive management showed higher multifunctionality due to higher yield. - Land-use type contrasts: Under ambient climate, cropland exhibited higher ecological multifunctionality than grassland for three of four primary stakeholder groups (farmers, local residents, tourism), driven by high performance in food production and aesthetics; under environmental agency weighting, sustainably managed cropland and grassland performed similarly, highlighting the importance of management intensity. - Climate effects: Future climate reduced ecological multifunctionality across most land-use types and weighting scenarios. The absolute reduction was most pronounced in sustainably managed cropland, largely due to strong declines in flower abundance, yet this land-use still retained the highest ecological multifunctionality across most scenarios under future climate. - Economic multifunctionality: Sustainable management increased economic multifunctionality substantially. Across both grassland and cropland, economic multifunctionality was approximately 1.7 to 1.9 times higher for sustainable compared to intensive management. In grasslands, climate regulation (soil carbon sequestration) contributed 28–70% of economic multifunctionality. Nitrogen surplus under intensive management strongly reduced economic multifunctionality via water-quality damages; this effect was negligible under sustainable management. - Robustness: The superiority of sustainable management in economic multifunctionality held under alternative CO₂ accounting prices and 20–40% crop price increases. Using an alternative (lower) accounting price for nitrogen leaching to groundwater (1.9 €/kg N) attenuated or removed the sustainable advantage in croplands, while it remained for grasslands, indicating site-specific sensitivity to social costs of nitrogen. - Alignment of metrics: Economic multifunctionality correlated positively with ecological multifunctionality across all weighting scenarios (correlation coefficients 0.352 to 0.738), with stronger alignment to environmental agency preferences and weaker to local residents. - Biodiversity–multifunctionality relationship: Soil biodiversity correlated positively with ecological multifunctionality. Across all land-use and climate types, the relationship was significant (e.g., R² ≈ 0.147, p < 0.01). Stratified analyses indicated significance under ambient climate (e.g., R² ≈ 0.147, p < 0.01) and weaker/marginal effects under future climate (e.g., R² ≈ 0.039, p ≈ 0.34), suggesting potential alterations in the role of biodiversity under stress, with indications that higher soil biodiversity supports multifunctionality. - Stakeholder gap and incentives: Farmers’ private benefits favored intensive grassland management in the short term, creating a disparity with societal economic multifunctionality that favors sustainable management. The implied payment to induce a switch from intensive to sustainable grassland management was estimated at ~€250/ha/yr, comparable to existing subsidies (~€267/ha/yr in Saxony-Anhalt).

The study demonstrates that sustainable land management enhances both ecological and economic multifunctionality, while future climate exerts predominantly negative effects on ecological multifunctionality via water limitation impacts on key functions (e.g., biomass production, flower abundance). The alignment between ecological and economic multifunctionality underscores that many societal benefits (climate regulation, water quality) accrue beyond farmers’ private returns. Intensive management’s nitrogen surplus imposes substantial social costs that depress economic multifunctionality despite modest gains in private yield, particularly in grasslands. The positive biodiversity–multifunctionality association supports biodiversity as a driver of multifunctionality and natural insurance for yield stability, though its observed strength may diminish under future climate scenarios. The divergence between farmers’ preferences (dominated by yield) and societal values (emphasizing regulating/supporting services) highlights the need for incentive mechanisms to internalize externalities and promote sustainable practices. Despite the largest absolute climate-driven reduction in sustainably managed croplands’ ecological multifunctionality, they retained the highest levels relative to other land-use types, emphasizing their overall robustness. Results suggest that landscape-scale multifunctionality benefits from a mosaic of land-use types, with sustainably managed grasslands contributing disproportionately to societal benefits via carbon sequestration and water quality protection.

By integrating stakeholder-weighted ecological indices with an economic multifunctionality metric, this study provides a comprehensive ecological-economic assessment of how land-use management and climate change shape the multifunctionality of agroecosystems. Sustainable management consistently outperforms intensive management in economic multifunctionality and generally in ecological multifunctionality across stakeholder perspectives, under both ambient and future climate. Future climate is projected to reduce ecological multifunctionality, yet sustainably managed cropland and grassland remain comparatively beneficial. Soil biodiversity emerges as a key correlate and likely driver of multifunctionality, contributing natural insurance via yield stabilization. Policy implications include the design and scaling of economic incentives and agri-environmental schemes to close the gap between farmers’ private benefits and societal multifunctionality, especially to mitigate nitrogen externalities and support carbon sequestration. Future research should refine valuation of cultural and intrinsic biodiversity values, include more comprehensive service sets, explore causality in biodiversity–multifunctionality links, and assess the dynamics of soil carbon equilibria and extreme climate events on multifunctionality.

Key limitations include: (1) Climate manipulation represents a mean future scenario with moderate warming; it may underrepresent impacts of climate extremes and higher-end warming trajectories. (2) The selection and weighting of ecosystem services involve methodological adaptations of survey data and subjective choices; cultural services (landscape aesthetics) and intrinsic biodiversity values were not monetized due to data gaps. (3) Causality in biodiversity–multifunctionality relationships cannot be inferred without direct biodiversity manipulations; potential confounding variables were not fully controlled. (4) The experimental site’s history as cropland affects soil carbon trajectories and may bias comparisons among land-use types during the transition phase. (5) Economic multifunctionality depends on site-specific accounting prices (social costs of carbon and nitrogen); results are sensitive to nitrogen cost assumptions and local hydrogeological conditions. (6) Insurance value estimates rely on assumed risk aversion and model specifications (lognormal yields, polynomial response surfaces). (7) Some ecosystem services (e.g., broader cultural/spiritual values) were not included, potentially underestimating total societal value.