Spatially Explicit Evaluation of the Agri-environmental Impact of CAP

A specific challenge when analysing the effectiveness of the new CAP, is to identify the localized environmental impacts of policies, especially of the new 'greening' measures. Agri-environmental indicators (AEI) are routinely used to monitor changes in environmental quality in general and the environmental impacts of CAP greening in particular and allow identifying hot- and cold-spots of environmental pressures. This paper proposes a methodology for the spatially explicit evaluation of agri-environmental impacts of CAP, which allows integrating environmental impact analysis into agro-economic models, with an application to CAPRI. We have developed an approach to estimate the impacts of CAP policy at high spatial resolution level using Bayesian disaggregation procedures taking into consideration local environmental conditions. We cover modelling of the following environmental indicators: nitrogen balances and emissions (GHG and reactive nitrogen), soil erosion, biodiversity friendly farming practices, farmland bird index, agricultural landscape structure, and an indicator related to environmental compensation zones. The paper shows the simulation results for a set of CAP greening scenarios to illustrate the capabilities of the developed methodology and potential environmental impacts of the greening measures