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Schönhart, M., Schauppenlehner, T., Kuttner, M., Kirchner, M., & Schmid, E. (2016). Climate change impacts on farm production, landscape appearance, and the environment: Policy scenario results from an integrated field-farm-landscape model in Austria. Agricultural Systems, 145, 39–50.
Abstract: Climate change is among the major drivers of agricultural land use change and demands autonomous farm adaptation as well as public mitigation and adaptation policies. In this article, we present an integrated land use model (ILM) mainly combining a bio-physical model and a bio-economic farm model at field, farm and landscape levels. The ILM is applied to a cropland dominated landscape in Austria to analyze impacts of climate change and mitigation and adaptation policy scenarios on farm production as well as on the abiotic environment and biotic environment. Changes in aggregated total farm gross margins from three climate change scenarios for 2040 range between + 1% and + 5% without policy intervention” and compared to a reference situation under the current climate. Changes in aggregated gross margins are even higher if adaptation policies are in place. However, increasing productivity from climate change leads to deteriorating environmental conditions such as declining plant species richness and landscape appearance. It has to be balanced by mitigation and adaptation policies taking into account effects from the considerable spatial heterogeneity such as revealed by the ILM. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Schönhart, M., Mitter, H., Schmid, E., Heinrich, G., & Gobiet, A. (2014). Integrated analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation measures in Austrian agriculture. German Journal of Agricultural Economics, 63(3), 156–176.
Abstract: An integrated modelling framework (IMF) has been developed and applied to analyse climate change impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation measures in Austrian agriculture. The IMF couples the crop rotation model CropRota, the bio-physical process model EPIC and the bottom-up economic land use model PASMA at regional level (NUTS-3) considering agri-environmental indicators. Four contrasting regional climate model (RCM) simulations represent climate change until 2050. The RCM simulations are applied to a baseline and three adaptation and policy scenarios. Climate change increases crop productivity on national average in the IMF. Changes in average gross margins at national level range from 0% to + 5% between the baseline and the three adaptation and policy scenarios. The impacts at NUTS-3 level range from -5% to + 7% between the baseline and the three adaptation and policy scenarios. Adaptation measures such as planting of winter cover crops, reduced tillage and irrigation are effective in reducing yield losses, increasing revenues, or in improving environmental states under climate change. Future research should account for extreme weather events in order to analyse whether average productivity gains at the aggregated level suffice to cover costs from expected higher climate variability.
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Schönhart, M. (2016). Heat stress impacts on cows in a case study landscape measured by an integrated modelling framework. Advances in Animal Biosciences, 7(03), 235–237.
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Hamidov, A., Helming, K., Bellocchi, G., Bojar, W., Dalgaard, T., Ghaley, B. B., et al. (2018). Impacts of climate change adaptation options on soil functions: A review of European case-studies. Land Degradation & Development, 29(8), 2378–2389.
Abstract: Soils are vital for supporting food security and other ecosystem services. Climate change can affect soil functions both directly and indirectly. Direct effects include temperature, precipitation, and moisture regime changes. Indirect effects include those that are induced by adaptations such as irrigation, crop rotation changes, and tillage practices. Although extensive knowledge is available on the direct effects, an understanding of the indirect effects of agricultural adaptation options is less complete. A review of 20 agricultural adaptation case-studies across Europe was conducted to assess implications to soil threats and soil functions and the link to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The major findings are as follows: (a) adaptation options reflect local conditions; (b) reduced soil erosion threats and increased soil organic carbon are expected, although compaction may increase in some areas; (c) most adaptation options are anticipated to improve the soil functions of food and biomass production, soil organic carbon storage, and storing, filtering, transforming, and recycling capacities, whereas possible implications for soil biodiversity are largely unknown; and (d) the linkage between soil functions and the SDGs implies improvements to SDG 2 (achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture) and SDG 13 (taking action on climate change), whereas the relationship to SDG 15 (using terrestrial ecosystems sustainably) is largely unknown. The conclusion is drawn that agricultural adaptation options, even when focused on increasing yields, have the potential to outweigh the negative direct effects of climate change on soil degradation in many European regions.
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Sinabell, F., Schmid, E., & Schönhart, M. Landwirtschaft und Klimawandel: Konsequenzen für die österreichische Landwirtschaft auf der Grundlage internationaler Forschungsergebnisse. Ländlicher Raum.
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