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Ponti, L., Gutierrez, A. P., Ruti, P. M., & Dell’Aquila, A. (2014). Fine-scale ecological and economic assessment of climate change on olive in the Mediterranean Basin reveals winners and losers. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 111(15), 5598–5603.
Abstract: The Mediterranean Basin is a climate and biodiversity hot spot, and climate change threatens agro-ecosystems such as olive, an ancient drought-tolerant crop of considerable ecological and socioeconomic importance. Climate change will impact the interactions of olive and the obligate olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae), and alter the economics of olive culture across the Basin. We estimate the effects of climate change on the dynamics and interaction of olive and the fly using physiologically based demographic models in a geographic information system context as driven by daily climate change scenario weather. A regional climate model that includes fine-scale representation of the effects of topography and the influence of the Mediterranean Sea on regional climate was used to scale the global climate data. The system model for olive/olive fly was used as the production function in our economic analysis, replacing the commonly used production-damage control function. Climate warming will affect olive yield and fly infestation levels across the Basin, resulting in economic winners and losers at the local and regional scales. At the local scale, profitability of small olive farms in many marginal areas of Europe and elsewhere in the Basin will decrease, leading to increased abandonment. These marginal farms are critical to conserving soil, maintaining biodiversity, and reducing fire risk in these areas. Our fine-scale bioeconomic approach provides a realistic prototype for assessing climate change impacts in other Mediterranean agro-ecosystems facing extant and new invasive pests.
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Montesino-San Martín, M., Olesen, J. E., & Porter, J. R. (2014). A genotype, environment and management (GxExM) analysis of adaptation in winter wheat to climate change in Denmark. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 187, 1–13.
Abstract: Wheat yields in Europe have shown stagnating trends during the last two decades, partly attributed to climate change. Such developments challenge the needs for increased production, in particular at higher latitudes, to meet increasing global demands and expected productivity reductions at lower latitudes. Climate change projections from three General Circulation Models or GCMs (UKMO-HadGEM1, INM-GM3.0 and CSIRO-Mk3.1) for the A1FI SIZES emission scenario for 2000 to 2100 were downscaled at a northern latitude location (Foulum, Denmark) using LARS-WG5.3. The scenarios accounted for changes in temperature, precipitation and atmospheric CO2 concentration. In addition, three temperature-variability scenarios were included assuming different levels of decreased temperature variability in winter and increased in summer. Crop yield was simulated for the different climate change scenarios by a calibrated version of AFRCWHEAT2 to model several combinations of genotypes (varying in crop growth, development and tolerance to water and nitrogen scarcity) and management (sowing dates and nitrogen fertilization rate). The simulations showed a slight improvement of grain yields (0.3-1.2 Mg ha(-1)) in the medium-term (2030-2050), but not enough to cope with expected increases in demand for food and feed. Optimum management added up to 1.8 Mg ha(-1). Genetic modifications regarding winter wheat crop development exhibit the greatest sensitivity to climate and larger potential for improvement (+3.8 Mg ha(-1)). The results consistently points towards need for cultivars with a longer reproductive phases (2.9-7.5% per 1 degrees C) and lower photoperiod sensitivities. Due to the positive synergies between several genotypic characteristics, multiple-target breeding programmes would be necessary, possibly assisted by model-based assessments of optimal phenotypic characteristics.
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Himanen, S. J., Ketoja, E., Hakala, K., Rötter, R. P., Salo, T., & Kahiluoto, H. (2013). Cultivar diversity has great potential to increase yield for feed barley. Agron. Sust. Developm., 33(3), 519–530.
Abstract: This study shows an average yield increase of 415–1,338 kg ha−1 per unit increase of the Shannon diversity index for feed barley cultivar use. There is a global quest to increase food production sustainably. Therefore, judicious farmer choices such as selection of crop cultivars are increasingly important. Cultivar diversity is limited and, as a consequence, corresponding crop yields are highly impacted by local weather variations and global climate change. Actually, there is little knowledge on the relationships between yields of regional crops and cultivar diversity, that is evenness and richness in cultivar use. Here, we hypothesized that higher cultivar diversity is related to higher regional yield. We also assumed that the diversity-yield relationship depends on weather during the growing season. Our data were based on farm yield surveys of feed and malting barley, Hordeum vulgare L.; spring wheat, Triticum aestivum L.; and spring turnip rape, Brassica rapa L. ssp. oleifera, from 1998 to 2009, representing about 4,500–5,500 farms annually. We modeled the relationships between regional yields and Shannon diversity indices in high-yielding (south-west) and low-yielding (central-east) regions of Finland using linear mixed models. Our results show that an increase of Shannon diversity index increases yield of feed barley. Feed barley had also the greatest cultivar diversity. In contrast, an average yield decrease of 1,052 kg ha−1 per unit increase in Shannon index was found for spring rape in 2006 and 2008. Our findings show that cultivar diversification has potential to raise mean regional yield of feed barley. Increasing cultivar diversity thus offers a novel, sustainability-favoring means to promote higher yields.
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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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Fürst, C., Helming, K., Lorz, C., Müller, F., & Verburg, P. H. (2013). Integrated land use and regional resource management--a cross-disciplinary dialogue on future perspectives for a sustainable development of regional resources. J. Environ. Manage., 127 Suppl, S1–S5.
Abstract: Our paper introduces objectives and ideas of the special issue “Integrated land use and regional resource management – A cross-disciplinary dialogue on future perspectives for a sustainable development of regional resources” and provides an overview on the contributions of the single papers in the special issue to this topic. Furthermore, we discuss and present major challenges and demands on integrated land use and regional resource management and we come up with an analytical framework how to correspond these demands.
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