And biodiversity

An even more streamlined approach scores each stage of the life cycle for impact on a number of environmental indicators. Typical indicators include resource depletion, global warming potential, smog production, acidification, eutrophication, toxic waste production and biodiversity impact. Impact is estimated using a simple numerical scale. The completed matrix is used to focus attention on areas for improvement. 

For instance, Costanza et al. [24] estimated the value of 17 ecosystem services in 16 biomes to an average US 33 trillion (12 zeroes) globally. This value is almost twice the size of the compared global GDP (or Global Gross National Product to be precise). The ecological economists estimate these values so that ecosystems and biodiversity can be included in new calculations of economic efficiency and economic performance. 

Mader P, Fliessbach A, Dubois D, Gunst L, Fried P and Niggli U (2002). Soil fertility and biodiversity in organic farming . Science, 296,1694—1697. 

MODELKEY (http // www.modelkey.org/) was an EU-funded project (2005-2010) within the sixth framework programme (FP6-2005-global-4, Topic II 3.1) that aimed to deliver models for assessing and forecasting the impact of environmental key pollutants on freshwater, and marine ecosystems and biodiversity. The main objectives of MODELKEY were ... 

Ecosystem and biodiversity conservation presence of invasive species... 

The Sava river basin is of great significance because of its outstanding biological and landscape diversity. It hosts a large complex of alluvial wetlands and large lowland forest complexes. The Sava is a unique example of a river where some of the floodplains are still intact, supporting both flood alleviation and biodiversity. 

Many definitions of sustainable agriculture are reported by literature, but all are related to the basic concept of a profitable crop production with no environmental pollution and depletion of farm and natural resources, including effects on soil, water, and biodiversity (Doran 2002 Francis et al. 2006). Soil solarization seems to fit the fundaments of sustainable agriculture as providing an effective and environmentally safe control of many soilbome pests and more competitive market positions and higher prices to pesticide-free products. 

Daroub SH, Ellis BG, Robertson GP (2001) Effect of cropping and low-chemical input systems on soil phosphoms fractions. Soil Sci 166 281-291 Dick RP, Breakwell DP, Turco RF (1996) Soil Enzyme Activities and Biodiversity Measurements as Integrative Microbiological Indicators. SSSA Special Pub 49 247-272... 

Homstead Agroforestry- A Source for Nutrition, Employment, and Biodiversity Conservation... 

The ecosystem acidification and critical load calculation processes are only partly scientific exercises, being connected closely with economic development of all countries. So, in different projects the hazards of concern include ecosystem damage due to acidification and eutrophication processes (e.g., decreased productivity and biodiversity, soil erosion, drinking water quality, reproduction losses, etc.), firstly, in local scale and, secondly, in regional scale that may lead to transboundary pollution. For more details see Figure 2. 

The landlocked Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water on Earth. Surrounded by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea is home to myriad ecosystems. At the meeting point of the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, the Caspian region includes steppe land in the north, cold, continental deserts and semi-deserts in the northeast and east, and warmer mountain and highland systems in the south and southwest. The coastal wetlands of the Caspian basin include many shallow, saline pools, which attract a variety of bird life and biodiversity over 400 species are unique to the Caspian. In addition, the sea s native sturgeon is famous the world around for the roe it produces sturgeon from the Caspian Sea accounts for approximately 90% of the world s caviar industry. 

Vitt, L. J. and Pianka, E. R. (2005) Deep history impacts present-day ecology and biodiversity. PNAS 102, 7877-7881. 

Testa, B., Balmat, A.L., Long, A. and Judson, P. (2005) Predicting drug metabolism-an evaluation of the expert system METEOR. Chemical and Biodiversity, 2, 872-885. 

Although the experts assessments vary enormously by country, the mean values show that the most important subjects with respect to the environmental impacts of organic farming are landscape, soil, ground and surface water and biodiversity. Climate as well as air and energy uses are, however, assessed to be of only minor importance. Only two experts identified animal health and welfare to be of special importance for organic farming in this context. 

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