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.

Abstract: The spatial distribution of future European landuse will be influenced by yield changes arising from climate change and changes in profitability as a consequence of socio-economic change (arising from changing food demand; prices; technology etc).  To understand how these factors affect future land use allocation, a modelling system has been set up to predict agricultural land use across the EU under any scenario set of climate and socio- and techno-economic data. Metamodels of crop and forest yields, and optimal cropping and profit are derived from the outputs of the IMPEL, GOTILWA+, SFARMODand WaterGAP models. Profitability of each possible land use is modelled across the EU, assuming that use will change to the most profitable in the timescale being considered (2050). Land use in a grid is then allocated based on profit, with minimum profit thresholds set for intensive agriculture (arable or grassland), extensive agriculture, managed forest and finally unmanaged forest or unmanaged land.  The European demand for food as a function of population, imports, food preferences and bioenergy, is a production constraint, as is irrigation water available.  The model iterates prices until demand is satisfied (or cannot be met) and basin water usage for irrigation is not more than is available.This presentation describes the application of the modelling system across future climate change uncertainty space (as given by 60 combinations of downscaled 10’x10’ gridded climate outputs from 5 Global Climate Models, 3 climate sensitivities and 4 emissions scenario) under both baseline and four future socio-economic scenarios to identify those areas of Europe in which the spatial allocation of agricultural landcovers are robust to this uncertainty. No Label

Abstract: The global land system is facing unprecedented pressures from growing human populations and climatic change. Understanding the effects these pressures may have is necessary to designing land management strategies that ensure food security, ecosystem service provision and successful climate mitigation and adaptation. However, the number of complex, interacting effects involved makes any complete understanding very difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, the recent development of integrated modelling frameworks allows for the exploration of the co-development of human and natural systems under scenarios of global change, potentially illuminating the main drivers and processes in future land system change. Here, we use one such integrated modelling framework (the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform) to investigate the range of projected outcomes in the European land system across climatic and socio-economic scenarios for the 2050s. We find substantial consistency in locations and types of change even under the most divergent conditions, with results suggesting that climate change alone will lead to a contraction in the agricultural and forest area within Europe, particularly in southern Europe. This is partly offset by the introduction of socioeconomic changes that change both the demand for agricultural production, through changing food demand and net imports, and the efficiency of agricultural production. Simulated extensification and abandonment in the Mediterranean region is driven by future decreases in the relative profitability of the agricultural sector in southern Europe, owing to decreased productivity as a consequence of increased heat and drought stress and reduced irrigation water availability. The very low likelihood (<33% probability) that current land use proportions in many parts of Europe will remain unchanged suggests that future policy should seek to promote and support the multifunctional role of agriculture and forests in different European regions, rather than focusing on increased productivity as a route to agricultural and forestry viability.