ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the relevance of cultivated lands for the provision of ecosystem services. It reviews the ecosystem services that are provided and consumed in these lands. The chapter presents various cultivation systems that have the potential for "sustainable intensification" by maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services while producing agricultural and forestry commodities. Cultivated landscapes are – together with urban lands – those biomes that have undergone the strongest degree of human impact. Cultivated lands are the result of anthropogenic transformations of ecosystems for the provisioning of crops. Cultivated lands are also important providers of regulating services, such as pollination, nutrient cycling, soil formation, reduction/control of soil erosion, pest control, carbon storage, water and soil quality control through detoxification of noxious chemicals, water regulation, climate regulation, flood and fire prevention and habitat conservation. Several land use systems hold the promise to integrate agricultural production and ecosystem services.
