PrioSilvAra: Tool for the prioritisation of areas for silvoarable systems in agricultural landscapes

January 16, 2025 March 11, 2025

admin

Silvoarable systems are the deliberate combination of crops with woody vegetation, with the objective of obtaining benefits from their interactions. These systems have multiple advantages, which have led to their increasing consideration in European policy and regulations:

- Productive and economic: diversification of production, increased overall productivity of the system, reduced vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather events, reduced desiccation effect of wind and insolation, increased land asset value, access to new sources of income (carbon farming, access to high-value markets).

- Environmental: soil protection (reduced erosion, increased carbon and organic matter), water protection (leachate filtration), increased and diversified biodiversity.

- Social: food security, landscape improvement, social perception of the farmer, reduction of water treatment costs.

Furthermore, depending on the design, other additional advantages can be achieved, such as increased pollination, integrated pest control or landscape enhancement.

The great diversity of silvoarable systems means that the intensity of the aforementioned advantages varies greatly depending on the design used and the geographical context. In this sense, Agresta S. Coop and CTFC have developed the PrioSilvAra tool in AgroForAdapt, which aims to identify the predominantly agricultural areas in which the implementation of silvoarable systems would be technically feasible and particularly beneficial from an environmental point of view: reducing vulnerability to climate change and protecting soil, water and biodiversity.

This tool is based on a hierarchical ranking model using cartographic analysis, the result of which is a map classifying the territory into four levels: high priority, medium priority, low priority, non-viable area for silvoarable systems.

This document describes the methodology followed and the results of the pilot application of this tool in the province of Burgos (Central-North Spain).