Abstract: Changes in climate, technology, policy and prices affect agricultural and rural development. To evaluate whether this development is sustainable, impacts of these multiple drivers need to be assessed for multiple indicators. In a case study area in the Netherlands, a bio-economic farm model, an agent-based land-use change model, and a regional emission model have been used to simulate rural development under two plausible global change scenarios at both farm and landscape level. Results show that in this area, climate change will have mainly negative economic impacts (dairy gross margin, arable gross margin, economic efficiency, milk production) in the warmer and drier W+ scenario, while impacts are slightly positive in the G scenario with moderate climate change. Dairy farmers are worse off than arable farmers in both scenarios. Conversely, when the W+ scenario is embedded in the socio-economic Global Economy (GE) scenario, changes in technology, prices, and policy are projected to have a positive economic impact, more than offsetting the negative climate impacts. Important is, however, that environmental impacts (global warming, terrestrial and aquatic eutrophication) are largely negative and social impacts (farm size, number of farms, nature area, odour) are mixed. In the G scenario combined with the socio-economic Regional Communities (RC) scenario the average dairy gross margin in particular is negatively affected. Social impacts are similarly mixed as in the GE scenario, while environmental impacts are less severe. Our results suggest that integrated assessments at farm and landscape level can be used to guide decision-makers in spatial planning policies and climate change adaptation. As there will always be trade-offs between economic, social, and environmental impacts stakeholders need to interact and decide upon most important directions for policies. This implies a choice between production and income on the one hand and social and environmental services on the other hand

Abstract: The ecosystem services (ES) approach is a framework for describing the benefits of nature to human well-being, and this has become a popular instrument for assessment and evaluation of ecosystems and their functions. Grazing lands can provide a wide array of ES that depend on their management practices and intensity. This article reviews the trends and approaches used in the analysis of some relevant ES provided by grazing systems, in line with the framework principles of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). The scientific literature provides reports of many studies on ES in general, but the search here focused on grazing systems, which returned only sixty-two papers. This review of published papers highlights that: (i) in some papers, the concept of ES as defined by the MA is misunderstood (e.g., lack of anthropocentric vision); (ii) 34% of the papers dealt only with one ES, which neglects the need for the multisectoral approach suggested by the MA; (iii) few papers included stakeholder involvement to improve local decision-making processes; (iv) cultural ES have been poorly studied despite being considered the most relevant for local and general stakeholders; and (v) stakeholder awareness of well-being as provided by ES in grazing systems can foster both agri-environmental schemes and the willingness to pay for these services.