ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes and discusses methods to assess the impact of changing land use with models. Especially in industrialized nations, changing economic conditions lead to large structural transformations in the businesses of land and its use. The environmental impact of land use can be analyzed in different ways. The main reason for doing this is to analyze different scenarios of land use. The classical decision-making process in agricultural land use is related to mainly one goal: maximizing the economic profit of the farm. The agricultural politics of the European Union are in transition, and agro- political conditions are not yet defined. Several scenarios suggest drastic changes in the subsidy system. The developed method also can help define the necessary additional compensation that would be necessary to encourage the farmer to adopt the cropping practices that would lead to attaining a set of environmental quality goals.
