Modeling tools for ecosystem service tradeoffs and synergies in agricultural landscapes

Authors: LI, KEVIN - Orise Fellow; Goslee, Sarah

Submitted to: Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/23/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Nature provides benefits to people practicing sustainable agriculture through ecosystem services like pollination, water purification, and erosion prevention. Computer models can help us understand how landscape management will affect ecosystem services. For example, land managers could benefit from knowing whether their actions may cause a tradeoff between ecosystem services, where one service increases while another decreases, or a synergy, where both services increase. There are already many ecosystem service modeling tools, but here we review the scientific literature to compare how useful they are for understanding tradeoffs and synergies between services in agricultural landscapes. Although we found no tool was ideal for this purpose, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) tool was the closest, and we propose some ways to improve its usefulness.

Technical Abstract: Researchers and decision makers increasingly recognize the importance of considering tradeoffs and synergies between multiple ecosystem services within the landscape when managing for sustainable agriculture. Ecosystem service modeling can be a valuable approach for exploring landscape management scenarios and understanding potential outcomes, but not all modeling frameworks are equally accessible, or appropriate for agroecosystems at the landscape level. We conducted a survey of ecosystem service modeling (ESM) tools to identify modeling frameworks that could simultaneously assess multiple ecosystem services associated with sustainable agriculture. Our criteria emphasize that models should be spatially explicit and quantify multiple agriculturally-relevant ecosystem services, and ideally should be adaptable to livestock systems and annual and perennial crops. Models should also be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). We synthesized 19 literature reviews that compared across multiple models, focusing on modeling frameworks that appeared consistently across reviews and matched most of our criteria. These models were: Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST); Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES); Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT); and Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES). We also included the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) and the Rangeland Production Model (RPM) as examples of modeling frameworks that focus on ecosystem services in grazing lands, which are not as well represented in the reviewed literature. Most ESM tools include climate, soil, and water processes, while fewer models cover pollination, natural habitat, or cultural values, and none include biological pest control or genetic diversity. We find that the InVEST framework covers the greatest range of agroecosystem services and is easily applicable to landscapes, automatable, open source, and freely accessible, though it lacks integrated modules for modeling processes specific to grazing land. We identify components of InVEST that must be improved to provide meaningful results in grazed or in integrated crop-livestock systems. The SolVES framework is unique in focusing on social and cultural values of ecosystem services, complementing the physical processes in InVEST. These models provide different, accessible options for understanding landscape management impacts on multiple ecosystem services, and have the potential to play a key role in supporting decision-making in sustainable agriculture.