Objective
TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AGRICULTURE IN EUROPE.
THE STAGES IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS WILL BE AS FOLLOWS :STAGE I : CHARACTERIZE THE MAJOR ZONES OF AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL IN THE EC ACCORDING TO THEIR CLIMATIC REQUIREMENTS. THIS WILL BE ACHIEVED BY :
A) USE OF SIMPLIFIED CROP-WEATHER MODELS FOR SPECIFIC CROPS TO ESTABLISH MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM GROWTH PERIODS, TEMPERATURE/PRECIPITATION/RADIATION NEEDS AND ESTIMATED POTENTIAL YIELD,
B) USE OF AN AGROCLIMATIC INDEX TO QUANTIFY THE EFFECT OF CLIMATIC VARIABILITY ON YIELD VARIABILITY,
C) ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MACROCLIMATE AND TOPOCLIMATE,
D) FIELD AND GROWTH CHAMBER ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RADIATION, TEMPERATURE AND WATER BALANCE AND CROP PRODUCTIVITY.
STAGE II : IDENTIFY THE MAGNITUDE AND EXTENT OF CHANGES IN CLIMATE WHICH WOULD BE REQUIRED TO CAUSE A SIGNIFICANT SPATIAL SHIFT OF THE LOCATION OF BOUNDARIES OF THE MAJOR ZONES OF AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL. IN THE FIRST INSTANCE THIS CAN BE ACHIEVED BY A SIMPLE SENSITIVITY STUDY OF AGROCLIMATIC ZONES. SUBSEQUENTLY, REFINEMENTS WOULD INCLUDE SENSITIVITY EXPERIMENTS USING THE CROP-CLIMATE RELATIONSHIPS ESTABLISHED IN I) ABOVE. THE ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES APPROPRIATE FOR THIS SPATIAL IMPACT ANALYSIS HAVE BEEN DEVELOPED AND TESTED ELSEWHERE BY AUTHORS OF THIS PROPOSAL.
AS IN STAGE I) ABOVE, INITIAL ATTENTION WILL BE GIVEN TO SPECIFIC CROPS AND REGIONS WHICH PRIMA FACIE ARE BOTH SENSITIVE TO CLIMATE AND ARE OF ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE IN THE EC.
STAGE III : CONSIDER THE EFFECT OF A NUMBER OF SCENARIOS OF A) CO2-INDUCED CLIMATIC CHANGE AND B) SHORT-TERM CLIMATIC VARIABILITY (SUCH AS ANOMALOUSLY DRY SPELLS OR COLD SPELLS) ON THE LOCATION OF BOUNDARIES OF SPECIFIED TYPES OF AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL. THE GODDARD INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES (GISS) GCM WOULD PROVIDE SCENARIOS FOR THE LONG-TERM CLIMATIC CHANGES. OUTPUTS FROM THIS WORK WOULD BE A SERIES OF MAPS LOCATING THE SPATIAL SHIFT OF POTENTIAL FOR DIFFERENT SCENARIOS. THE FORM OF ANALYSIS PROPOSED HERE HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY EMPLOYED TO MAP POSSIBLE SHIFTS OF AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL IN NORTH AMERICA.
STAGE IV : CONSIDER THE RATE AT WHICH THE SPATIAL SHIFTS OF AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL ARE LIKELY TO OCCUR. THIS WILL INVOLVE REFERENCE TO OUTPUTS FROM GISS GCM EXPERIMENTS RELATING TO THE TRANSIENT EFFECT OF CLIMATE OF INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC CO2 AND OTHER TRACE GASES. THESE EXPERIMENTS ARE AT PRESENT BEING CONDUCTED FOR A VARIETY OF LEVELS OF CO2 CONTENT OF THE ATMOSPHERE (J. HANSEN, PERSONAL COMMUNICATION) AND RESULTS ARE NOW BECOMING AVAILABLE FOR USE IN CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENT. BY REFERENCE TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE OF THE RATE OF EMISSION OF CO2 AND OTHER TRACE GASES, WE CAN BEGIN TO ESTIMATE THE TIMESCALE OVER WHICH THE CHANGES MAY OCCUR.
STAGE V : CONSIDER THE ADJUSTMENTS IN CULTIVAR, CROP TYPE AND CROPPING SYSTEM THAT WOULD ACCOMODATE THESE CHANGES MOST EFFICIENTLY. THIS WOULD REQUIRE A FURTHER SET OF EXPERIMENTS WITH THE CROP-CLIMATE MODELS, EMPLOYING ALTERED ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT CROP REQUIREMENTS FOR CLIMATE, FERTILIZERS, DRAINAGE, ETC.
Fields of science
Topic(s)
Data not availableCall for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
50144 Firenze
Italy