An Optimization Model for the Maximization of Crop Productivity, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services

Agricultural expansion has led to significant losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services. Empirical studies have shown that integrating strips of native prairie into croplands can improve biodiversity and ecosystem services, and that these improvements increase with the amount of prairie and the length of edges between the prairie and crop. Researchers have developed models to balance profit and biodiversity or ecosystem services at large landscape scales. However, at such large scales, these models are often limited to coarse resolutions and cannot consider edge effects. Furthermore, they must be solved with local-search techniques or other heuristics that do not guarantee an optimal solution. We present a multi-objective mixed-integer optimization model for cropland design consider crop production, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. To illustrate the model, we apply it to a case study of a field in central Michigan, USA.