1. Methodological studies in the field of Agro-Environmental Indicators
Lot 2. Grassland areas, production and use
Gerard Velthof

2. Grasslands
Grasslands types, areas, productivity, and nutrient balances needed for targeting, monitoring and evaluation of
Common Agricultural Policy
Environmental policies
Climate mitigation targets
High Nature Value farmland
Habitats Directive
Nitrates Directive

3. General objective of the project
To bring clarity into the issue of defining, classifying, collecting and disseminating data on European grassland areas, use and production.
October 2012 – December 2013

4. Specific objectives
Create an overview of the different types of grasslands existing in Europe
Create possible ways of classifying the grasslands in coherent manners, allowing different types of analyses to be made
Create a set of recommendations on how to collect data on grasslands, in ways allowing the creation of coherent European datasets.

5. Six tasks Task 1 Defining and classifying grasslands
Task 2 Currently used methodologies to estimate grassland production and biological fixation
Task 3 Grassland definition and classification
Task 4 Existing grassland survey
Task 5 Methods for data collection
Task 6 Expert/ statistician workshop

6. Task 1 Defining and classifying grasslands
To make a literature review of existing definitions and classifications of grasslands that are used in diverse domains, both statistical, administrative, scientific and other.

7. Task 2 Currently used methodologies to estimate grassland production and biological fixation
To make a literature review on existing methodologies to estimate grassland production and to estimate biological fixation in grasslands

8. Task 3 Grassland definition and classification
To make recommendations for
potential definitions of grasslands and
classification schemes on grassland
analysis of the strengths and weaknesses,
the ease the classifications can be set up,
the link to FAO and other international organisations,
the impact on data use

9. Task 4 Existing grassland survey
To collect and analyse data about grassland production in the EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland (questionnaire).
Analysis and synthesis of the results:
weaknesses and strengths of existing surveys
recommendations for collection of consistent data about grasslands

10. Task 5 Methods for data collection
To analyse the characteristics of grasslands which need to be collected
To identify different methods of collecting these characteristics in different surveying methods
To propose several data collection scenarios on how to bring together the various possible strategies on data collection into holistic approaches.

11. Task 6 Expert/ statistician workshop
To organise a workshop for grassland experts
Aim: to discuss the results with from the agri- environmental, grassland community and statistics communities

12. Involvement of AEI working group
Discussion session, based on the short questionnaire
A detailed questionnaire will be sent in March/April
Suggestions for topics and questions?
Please, provide names of experts or contact persons

13. Contact Gerard Velthof Alterra, Wageningen UR
P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen
tel

14. This afternoon further discussion