Agri-environmental policies and planning influence agricultural landscape management, and thus the capacity to deliver landscape services and to contribute to rural viability. Numerous models and frameworks have been developed to improve comprehension of the mechanisms and interrelationships between policies, landscape and socio-economic values and benefits. As social-ecological systems, landscapes are closely depending from the socio-institutional and territorial context of the specific rural locality. The paper proposes an enhanced framework for assessing these mechanisms by acknowledging the critical role of the regional macro-environment. A literature review and the revisiting of evidence from eight European case studies are applied to establish a comprehensive understanding and exemplification of the links between the policies, landscape, ecosystem services and value flows. Results highlight the need for integrative, inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches. Efficient landscape policies require enhanced regional embeddedness and targeting, acknowledgement of user demands and the capability of regional community and governance structures for policy implementation and natural capital valorisation

The aim of this paper is to elicit the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for the improved provision of public goods (PGs) by agriculture in a region of intensive agricultural production, embodying many of the environmental problems related to agriculture within and outside the European Union (EU). Our analysis was based on a participatory approach, combining the involvement of local stakeholders and a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in the Marchfeld region in Austria. We estimated a random parameters logit model (RPL), including interactions with socio-demographic factors, to disentangle preference heterogeneity and find a positive MWTP of the local population for all three PGs analyzed: (i) groundwater quality; (ii) landscape quality; and (iii) soil functionality in connection with climate stability. Furthermore, MWTP varies considerably with respect to age, farmers/non-farmers and locals/incomers. Further research could combine the results of this demand-side valuation with those of a supply-side valuation, where the opportunity costs of different management options for farmers are estimated. Based on such a cost–benefit analysis and further participation of local stakeholders, new governance mechanisms for the smart and sustainable provision of PGs by agriculture could be developed for the Marchfeld region and for comparable European regions.