Ecologia Balkanica

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https://doi.uni-plovdiv.bg/handle/store/4
p-ISSN: 1314-0213 / e-ISSN: 1313-9940

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Browsing Ecologia Balkanica by Subject "agriculture"

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    A toolkit for assessing cultural ecosystem services at a community level
    (Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2025-08-10) Petrova, Slaveya; Valcheva, Ekaterina; Bileva, Tatyana; Dakova, Megi
    Agricultural systems provide people with multiple benefits (both commodity and noncommodity products). Agroecosystem services in this context describe the anthropogenic contribution to the generation of agroecosystem services. Agroecosystem services include a range of services from agricultural ecosystems – provisioning, regulation, maintenance and cultural services. Agroecosystem services adapt the ecologically based concept of ecosystem services to the specifics of managed agricultural ecosystems, thus making this concept more applicable to economically oriented agricultural production systems and agricultural policies. Based on their specific features and nature, it is accepted to group ecosystem services into four categories – material, regulating, supporting and cultural. The majority of benefits from the group of cultural ecosystem services (e.g., leisure and recreation, aesthetic interactions, traditions and rituals) are intangible and therefore often remain undervalued by society. For these reasons, in the last decade, intensive work has been done to deepen understanding of human dependence on natural processes at different temporal and spatial scales, as well as to search for appropriate economic and management criteria and indicators by which to measure the value of these ecosystem services. In this study, we aimed to present a toolkit for assessing cultural ecosystem services provided by agroecosystems. The data obtained through the proposed toolkit can serve to shape recommendations for the sustainable management of agricultural ecosystems, protecting livelihoods and natural resources, so that agro-ecosystems can continue to deliver ES in addition to food production.
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    Influence of Camelina crops on soil CO2 emissions
    (Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2025-02-03) Petrova, Slaveya; Stanchev, Georgi; Marcheva, Marina; Popov, Vladislav
    The Green Deal poses different challenges for EU agriculture, and this production will cost more and will be reflected on the global market once agriculture is included in the emissions trading system. Sustainable land management will be crucial to achieving the EU's climate neutrality target by 2050, as it will increase the amount of carbon captured and stored in plants and soils. Agriculture’s role in carbon sequestration is most closely linked to soil as a carbon sink. Soils have the potential to act as significant carbon sinks, storing carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as CO2. Through practices such as cover crops, reduced tillage, and organic farming, farmers can improve soil carbon sequestration, contributing to climate mitigation efforts. The aim of the present study was to track the dynamics of soil CO2 emissions during the vegetation of Camelina in different intercropping systems and, on this basis, to evaluate the possibilities for sustainable management of carbon in the soil. After the three-year studies, we can recommend the use of Camelina as monocultures and especially in mixed crops with legumes as a step towards sustainable management of CO2 emissions and towards the so-called carbon agriculture. This approach has the additional advantage of biologically nourishing the soil with nitrogen, as well as creating more favorable conditions for the development of the soil microbiome.