Anne A. van Dam, Hugh A. Robertson, Roland Prieler, Asmita Dubey, Colin Maxwell Finlayson

Agriculture is a main driver of global decline in wetlands, but in addressing its impact the diversity in agricultural production systems and their catchment interactions must be recognized. In this paper we review the impacts of food production systems on wetlands to seek a better understanding of agriculture-wetland interactions and identify options for increasing sustainability. Eight farming system types were defined based on natural resource use and farming intensity, and their impact on different wetland types assessed through their direct drivers of change. Indirect drivers (such as decision-making in food systems, markets, globalization and governance) were also summarized. Findings show that most inland wetlands are influenced by farming directly, through changes in water and nutrient supply and use of pesticides, or indirectly through catchment water, sediment and nutrient pathways. Coastal wetlands are mostly influenced indirectly. More sustainable food production can be achieved through continued protection of wetlands, improving efficiency in agricultural resource use generally (e.g. through conservation agriculture), but also through more integration within production systems (e.g. through crop-livestock-fish integration) or with wetlands (integrated wetland-agriculture), more support for small-scale producers, and a transformation towards balancing the provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services of wetland agroecosystems within catchments.