PERSIST: Spatio-Temporal Patterns and Trends of Environmental Footprints and Reductions of Climate Impacts in Switzerland
Context
To ensure global food security, transformation towards more sustainable agricultural systems is urgently needed. Research has already identified strategies to reduce the footprint of agricultural production and to strengthen the resilience of agricultural production to climate change. Still, consistent implementation of these practices is hampered by the lack of reliable information over space and time. Moreover, approaches to assess the impact of management practices on reducing the climate impact of production for individual fields across the agricultural landscape are missing.
Project aims
PERSIST aims to develop an innovative approach to quantify spatio-temporal patterns and trends of greenhouse gas emissions and water use and to assess management practices to reduce climate impacts of agriculture in Switzerland. This will be done by combining high spatio-temporal resolution data streams from satellite remote sensing, eddy-covariance flux and meteorological measurements with site, soil, and management information. Thus, by providing quantitative evidence how land management practices are related to greenhouse gas emissions and water use, PERSIST will deliver the basis for a knowledge-based implementation of sustainable farming practices using Switzerland as the case study region. Results of PERSIST will support farmers in making their achievements visible and help policy makers in designing impact-orientated regulations.
Objectives
The three major objectives of PERSIST are to
- estimate GHG fluxes and water use in response to management and weather at field scale,
- identify and evaluate cropland and grassland management practices across Switzerland that reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture, and
- assess implementation barriers of practices towards climate-smart agriculture in Switzerland.