Bottom-up methodologies for the modeling and upscaling of farm Nitrogen losses in European landscapes

This paper presents bottom-up scaling methodologies, implemented in the MEA-Scope strategic research project, and in the NitroEurope landscape level component. Both projects are based on a bottom-up approach, where farm information are collected for landscapes in Germany, Slovakia, Poland, France, Hungary, Italy, Scotland, The Netherlands and Denmark; and landscape level impacts of the Model for European Agriculture (MEA) are assessed. This paper is about the upscaling from farm to landscape level, and focuses on the modelling of Nitrogen surplus from agriculture as an indicator for water pollution. It is demonstrated in detail how farm information from the Danish landscape is upscaled for such landscape level analyses, using the EU Integrated Area Control System (IACS) and GIS. Subsequently, farm N-surpluses, upscaled for each of the other MEA-scope landscapes, are also presented, and different upscaling pathways are reviewed. Based on the results, advantages in the bottom-up approaches applied are emphasized. It is concluded, that bottom-up methods for upscaling are needed to convey information from research to decision-makers, and that it is important to specifically address the scale issue within the cycle of strategic research, where an iterative interaction between researchers and decision-makers is carried out.