Analysis of the adaptive potentials of agrarian land use to climate change

Project
Project team

Project

The link of agriculture with climate change is two-fold. First, it contributes to the climate change phenomena through either the emission or mitigation of greenhouse gases, and second, agricultural production itself is vulnerable to climatic changes such as mean temperature and precipitation patterns. Therefore, integrative analyses on consequences of climate change on agrarian land use and crop management as well as on the adaptive potentials of such measures to climate change impacts are necessary to foster sustainable land use development.

The adaptive potentials are analysed in an integrated data-modelling framework consisting of data on climate change, soil, topography, crop rotations and crop management, which are all input to the bio-physical process model EPIC. The integrated data-modelling framework is able to provide a rich set of production and environmental parameters (e.g. crop yields, gross margins, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions, soil sediment loss, and soil organic carbon) on a square kilometre raster resolution for Austria and periods between 1975 and 2050. By means of statistical analyses and concepts of risk, the climate change impacts on crop production are analysed in spatial, temporal, and crop management specific contexts. This allows a detailed and local assessment of the adaptive potentials of agrarian land use and crop management in Austria.

Project team

phd-student: Mitter Hermine, DDipl.-Ing.
supervisor: Schmid Erwin, Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.
co-supervisors: Penker Marianne, Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing.Dr.nat.techn.
Schönhart Martin, Dipl.-Ing. Mag. Dr.