Climate Change Impacts on Agroecosystems in Austria

The overall goal of the proposed project is to assess potential climate change impacts on agroecosystems at selected major agricultural regions in Upper Austria, North-East Austria and South-East Austria using different crop- weather dynamical models. The major objectives of the proposed research are: a) to calibrate and validate crop-weather models within agroecosystems for maize, winter wheat and spring barley for the environmental conditions in the regions of interest; b:) to develop appropriate incremental and GCM climate change scenarios for the selected regions; c) to assess potential vulnerability of the selected agroecosystems under the projected climate change scenarios during the 21st century at the selected regions using different crop-weather models and an ecosystem model; d) to assess possible adaptation measures in agrotechnology for the selected regions under different climate change and management scenarios using different crop-weather models; e) to compare and analyze the results, simulated by different crop-weather models in order to estimate the differences in model performance and related uncertainties; f) to integrate all climate change impact results for the selected major agricultural regions. The work program of the project proposal will include the following steps: 1. Calibration and validation of crop-weather models - different crop-weather models (CERES, EPIC) and an ecosystem model (CENTURY) for maize, winter wheat and spring will be adapted to the environmental conditions in the selected major agricultural regions. 2. Developing climate change scenarios - several incremental and GCM (Global Circulation Model) climate change scenarios for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s will be created. 3. Vulnerability assessments - analysis of the vulnerability of the selected agricultural crops at the selected areas of investigation (e.g., projections of the expected, magnitude of the impacts). 4. Adaptation assessments - adaptation options such as changes in planting dates, crop cultivars and irrigation will be considered to decrease the potential crop vulnerability. 5. Estimation of differences in crop-model performance and related uncertainties - the performances of different impact models will be compared in respect of their simulated results. 6. Integration of the results obtained during the current and proposed project - all previous and expected results will be integrated for the regions in Upper, North-East and South-East Austria.