Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on society
temperatures have negative effects on crop yield and
water availability (Challinor et al., 2014). Agriculture
in the EU is, to a great extent, affected by the EU CAP
(EU Regulations 1305–1308/2013), which is being shaped
by concerns for food security and influenced by the
need to reduce the environmental and greenhouse
gas burdens from agricultural production systems.
However, these influencing factors on farming systems
have different time dimensions, where changes in the
agricultural policy mostly operate on a short time scale
and the need for adaptation in many cases has a longer
time horizon. Within the CAP, the need to consider the
use of various instruments is considered under the
rural development pillar for supporting adaptation, in
particular where climate change results in the need for
changes in farming systems in land use. The adaptations
are highly regionally specific depending on the local
context in terms of climate, soils and farming systems, as
illustrated in Box 5.1.
Selection of indicators
The following indicators were chosen to evaluate
selected impacts of climate change on agriculture, with
the following sections dealing with each of these in turn:
• growing season for agricultural crops — this indicator
determines the suitability for growing agricultural
crops, as determined by temperature;
• agrophenology — this indicator traces changes in the
timing of the annual cycle of agricultural crops;
• water-limited crop yield — this indicator considers
potential changes in crop productivity caused by
changes in temperature, rainfall and atmospheric
CO 2 concentration;
• crop water demand — this indicator estimates
the water needs for maintaining maximum crop
yields, thereby assessing the adaptation needs of
agricultural water supply.
The concluding section describes impacts on livestock,
but not as an indicator, as the indirect effects on
livestock through feed production are partly covered by
the indicators covering water-limited crop productivity
and water requirements for irrigation. In addition, the
impacts of climate change on livestock production are
exemplified in three case study regions in Europe in
Box 5.1.
The indicators were chosen based on various criteria,
including the availability of relevant data across Europe
and the ability to identify the main drivers of agricultural
change to inform the design of adaptation policy. The
indicators presented here focus on the biophysical
effects of changes in temperature and precipitation.
Agricultural production and land use are also, to a
great extent, driven by changes in technology and
socio‐economic conditions, which are not considered
here, although the biophysical effects will also be
relevant to changing technology and socio‐economic
conditions. As well as changes in climatic conditions,
crop yield and quality are also affected directly by
changes in atmospheric CO 2 concentration through
impacts on photosynthesis and water use (Box 5.2).
Essentially, effects on crop yield in the future will be
shaped by the interaction between changes in climate,
atmospheric CO 2 and technology.
Data quality and data needs
The effects of climate change on the growing season
and crop phenology can be monitored directly, partly
through remote sensing of the growing season and
partly through monitoring of specific phenological events
such as flowering. There is no common monitoring
network for crop phenology in Europe, and therefore
data on crop phenology have to be based on various
national recordings, often from agronomic experiments
(Olesen et al., 2012). Crop yield and crop requirements
for irrigation are affected not only by climate change,
but also by management and a range of socio-economic
factors (see Chapter 6). The effects of climate change on
these factors therefore have to be estimated indirectly
using agrometeorological indicators and through
statistical analyses of the interaction between climatic
variables and factors such as crop yield (Caubel et al.,
2015).
The projections of climate change impacts and
adaptation in agriculture rely heavily on modelling, and
it needs to be recognised that there is often a chain of
uncertainty involved in the projections, which range
from emissions scenarios, through climate modelling
and downscaling, to assessments of impacts using
an impact model (Ewert et al., 2015). The relevant
modelling approaches in Europe have been discussed in
a recent report of the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) (Rötter and Höhn, 2015). The extent of all these
uncertainties is rarely quantified, even though some
studies have assessed uncertainties related to individual
components. The crop modelling community has only
recently started addressing uncertainties related to
modelling impacts of climate change on crop yield and
the effect of possible adaptation options (Rötter et al.,
2011; Asseng et al., 2013), and so far only a few studies
have involved livestock systems. Recently, the effects
of extreme climate events have also been included in
impact assessments (Trnka et al., 2014; Lesk et al., 2016),
but other effects such as those related to biotic hazards
(e.g. pests and diseases) still need to be explored
(Garrett et al., 2013; Launay et al., 2014).
224 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report