Templates for multifunctional landscape design

Context In climate-smart landscapes people manage land use for integrating sustainable production, climate change adaptation and mitigation. The spatial dimension of this multifunctionality remains to be formalised to increase effectiveness of nature-based solutions. Objectives We aimed to systematically analyse effects of fragmentation on multifunctionality and their interactions with land-use intensity responses. Methods We generated virtual landscapes to model interactions among six ecosystem services (ES) of different spatial sensitivities. We simulated land-use patterns on topographies from plains to mountains. Four land-use intensity treatments departed from hypothesised optimal composition for biodiversity and ES with > 30% intensive, < 30% extensive or protected and > 40% intermediate intensity use. For each composition we generated landscapes with differing fragmentation. Results Pixel- and landscape-level multifunctionality emerge from sensitivities of the six ES to landscape composition, fragmentation and their interactions. In heterogeneous landscapes of intermediate land-use intensity extensive grasslands and spatial complementarity supported multiple ES provision. Increasing land use intensity decreased multifunctionality by reducing all ES. However, greater fragmentation mitigated some of these effects because its benefits to nitrogen retention and pollination exceeded losses for recreation, especially in finer-grained landscapes. The five regulating ES were synergistic and showed trade-offs with recreation. Although interactions were most sensitive to intensity given its dominant effects on individual ES, fragmentation mediated interaction strength. Conclusions Virtual simulations allow a systematic understanding of how interactions between land-use intensity and fragmentation modulate multifunctionality. This constitutes an essential step to designing templates for climate smart-landscapes tailored to regional geographies, land-use allocation and ES priorities.