Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe ... - MemoFin.fr

Climate impacts on socio-economic systems and healthcaused by changes in temperature, rainfall andatmospheric CO 2concentration.• Water requirement for irrigation: This indicatorestimates the water needs for maintainingmaximum crop yields, thereby assessing theadaptation needs of agricultural water supply.The indicators were chosen based on variouscriteria, including the availability of relevant dataacross Europe and the ability to identify the maindrivers of agricultural change to inform the designof adaptation policy. Figure 4.1 illustrates the linksbetween these indicators and the driving climaticand atmospheric variables. Impacts on livestock arenot explicitly included in this report for two reasons.First, effects on livestock are mostly indirect throughfeed production, and as such effects are coveredwith the indicators covering water-limited cropproductivity and water requirement for irrigation.Second, there is little direct evidence of climatechange effects on livestock, except for changes inlivestock diseases related to climate change, and thishas not been included as an indicator.Figure 4.1GrowingseasonLinks between climatic driversand agricultural indicatorsCropproductivityAgrophenologyCO 2concentrationWaterrequirementData quality and data needsEffects of climate change on the growing season andcrop phenology can be monitored directly, partlythrough remote sensing (growing season) andpartly through monitoring of specific phenologicalevents such as flowering. There is no commonmonitoring network for crop phenology in Europe,and data on this therefore has to be based onvarious national recordings, often from agronomicexperiments (Olesen et al., 2012). Crop yield andcrop requirements for irrigation are not only affectedby climate change, but also by management anda range of socio‐economic factors. The effects ofclimate change on these factors therefore have tobe estimated indirectly using agrometeorologicalindicators and through statistical analyses betweenclimatic variables and factors such as crop yield.The projections of climate change impacts andadaptation in agriculture rely heavily on modelling,and it needs to be recognised that there is often achain of uncertainty involved in the projectionsgoing from emission scenario, through climatemodelling, downscaling and to assessments ofimpacts using an impact model (Olesen et al.,2007). The extent of all these uncertainties is rarelyquantified, even though some studies have assesseduncertainties related to individual components.The crop modelling community has only recentlystarted addressing uncertainties related to modellingimpacts of climate change on crop yield andeffect of possible adaptation options (Rötter et al.,2011), and so far only few studies have involvedlivestock systems. Future studies also need to betterincorporate effects of extreme climate events as wellas biotic hazards (e.g. pests and diseases).TemperaturePrecipitationClimate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012159