Decreasing deposition will reduce costs for nature management

In this paper, we present a method to estimate the additional costs made by nature reserve managers to mitigate the effects of atmospheric deposition. Theoretically, these extra costs may be saved when deposition levels drop. The costs were calculated per Nature Target Type (NTT) and management intensity for both the current (high) and reduced deposition levels. The resulting ecological quality was estimated in both cases. We calculated the difference in costs based on the management intensities required to maintain ecological quality at the current and reduced nitrogen deposition levels. For the NTTs within the clusters grassland, reed and rough land, and heathland we used dynamic simulation models. For forests and moorland pools we used expert knowledge to estimate the reduction in management costs due to a decrease in deposition. The total amount of money that may be saved because of the reduction of deposition rates is estimated at 42 million euro per year for the period from 2000 to 2020 for the assessed NTTs. The highest savings can be made in grasslands; 28 million euro. On average the savings were 80 €/ha/yr, which ranged from 5 €/ha/yr for forest to 299 €/ha/yr for reed and rough land.