DSS-Ecopay – A decision support software for designing ecologically effective and cost-effective agri-environment schemes to conserve endangered grassland biodiversity

Agri-environment schemes (AES) compensate farmers for applying costly land-use measures that are beneficial to biodiversity. We present DSS-Ecopay, a decision support software for the simulation and optimization of grassland AES. DSS-Ecopay consists of a database capturing the ecological and economic input data, an ecological model for calculating the effect of mowing regimes, grazing regimes and combinations of mowing and grazing regimes on endangered birds, butterflies and habitat types, an agri-economic model for estimating their costs and a simulation and an optimization module for determining ecologically effective and cost-effective AES. DSS-Ecopay is highly flexible and adaptive as it can be applied to different regions and changing economic and ecological circumstances.