Use of small-scale grassland areas in Saxony
Research results published

13th February 2023, Freiberg/Nossen (Germany)
 

 
In the Central European cultivated landscape, grassland fulfils numerous important ecosystem services such as soil, erosion and flood protection, CO2 fixation and the provision of oxygen and habitats. However, a lack of profitability increasingly threatens the use of grassland and leads to its abandonment. This particularly affects small, morphologically or geometrically unfavourable areas. In the frame of a research project, financed by the Saxon State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology (LfULG), Beak estimated the extent of small-scale grassland areas and their current use in Saxony, based on GIS analysis.
 
All grassland areas smaller than 5 ha were determined from various existing geodata sources and comprehensively statistically described with regard to geographical, environmental and administrative parameters. For some of these areas, data were collected by an on-site survey with the farmers to determine use and profitability.
 
The results of the study have now been published and are available as free download as a brochure in a series of publications by the Saxon State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology.