Ecological Indicators 18 (2012) 149–162 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Development of indicators for assessment of the environmental impact of livestock farming in Ireland using the Agri-environmental Footprint Index Geertrui Louwagie a,b,* , Greg Northey a , John A. Finn c , Gordon Purvis a a School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland b European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Sevilla, Spain c Teagasc, Environment Research Centre, Johnstown Castle, Wexford, Ireland article info Article history: Received 30 March 2011 Received in revised form 10 September 2011 Accepted 6 November 2011 Keywords: Agri-environment schemes Environmental assessment Multi-criteria analysis Multi-metric indicators Participatory approach Policy analysis abstract The Agri-environment Footprint Index (AFI) was developed as a generic methodology to assess farm- scale changes in the environmental impacts of agriculture and to assist the assessment of European agri-environment schemes. Using the AFI method, context-specific indicators were developed for rela- tively extensive dry-stock, and relatively intensive dairy farming in the northwest and south of Ireland, respectively. Both these farming contexts are subject to the same multi-objective Irish Rural Environment Protection Scheme. The rationale and detailed structure of four indicators are presented; these relate to: organic nutrient application, organic nutrient storage, the biodiversity value of intensive grass husbandry, and the aesthetic landscape value of grass husbandry practice. Sixteen other indicators are detailed in Supplementary material. The majority of the indicators developed involved risk assessment of farm man- agement practices, as a proxy (surrogate) means to assess environmental state. In this sense, they provide an indirect measure or estimate of likely environmental quality, or relative environmental risk. In many cases, the complexities of environmental concerns required the development of integrative multi-metric indicators with corresponding transformation functions. Wherever possible, these functions were based on known (evidence-based) regional or national impact models. Such models (including quantification of relevant environmental quality levels) were frequently unavailable, in which case a participatory process of stakeholder and expert engagement was essential to fill knowledge gaps. Links between the devel- oped indicators and the European Commission’s Common Evaluation and Monitoring Framework (CMEF) that was developed around the same time, are presented. In this sense, the context-specific and policy- relevant indicators (and the method to generate them) provide a useful addition to the CMEF common indicators, especially to reflect the specific objectives of national/regional agri-environmental policies. Despite their customisation to the farming contexts studied, the basic structure and underlying logic of many of the developed indicators may be of much wider use in similar livestock-based agro-ecosystems. A common, geo-referenced spatial framework built on contextual indicators that takes into account climate and farming type, would represent a significant advance in the harmonised development of indicators relevant to analysis of agri-environmental policy. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) developed by the European Commission (EC, 2006), provides a unified framework for monitoring and evaluation of all rural devel- opment interventions for the programming period 2007–2013. The Commission’s Evaluation Unit clearly regards the CMEF as providing a relevant pan-European set of indicators. However, * Corresponding author at: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Economy Unit, Edificio EXPO, Calle Inca Garcilaso 3, 41092 Sevilla, Spain. E-mail address: geertrui.louwagie@gmail.com (G. Louwagie). it also acknowledges that the proposed common indicators may not fully capture all effects of programme activity, in particu- lar for national priorities and site-specific measures, and that measure-specific impact indicators may need to be developed. Thus, given the many local, context-dependent implementations of the rural development instrument (Rural Development Regulation (EC) 1698/2005, as amended by Council Regulation (EC) 74/2009), it is envisaged that the CMEF will need to be supplemented by indicators that reflect the unique national or regional character and contextual factors (such as variable geology and soils, topog- raphy, climate, farming type and tradition) (EENRD, 2008). The Agri-environmental Footprint Index (AFI), an aggregated farm-level index, was designed to provide exactly this flexibility, whilst using a common conceptual evaluation structure and harmonised process 1470-160X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.11.003