Climate change adaptation of food and water systems
Background: Global warming in the coming decades seems unavoidable. Food provision, land management, water supply systems, environmental conservation and nature protection will be severely affected. Effective, robust and spatially varied coping strategies to reduce impacts and systemic volatilities need to be developed urgently. Policy issues: Where are food-and-water supply systems most in need of targeted adaptation? What are integrated strategies, financial dimensions, fairness aspects, and poverty implications of adapting food-and-water systems to the challenges of climate change?
Research questions/challenges: What are the spatial (e.g. by agro-ecological zones) and temporal (e.g. in decadal steps) characteristics of adaptation requirements of current land uses (crops, livestock, forestry, nature protection)? Which agro-ecosystems and water services, when, and where are most at risk? What are the requirements and options for land use adaptation to achieve required regional levels of food and water provision in view of climate change? Beyond temperature and moisture regime changes, what are additional key impacts and uncertainties in food and water provision due to climate change, for instance such as altered pest and disease incidence, plant damage due to heat stress and extreme temperature episodes, or enhanced climate variability and extreme events? What are robust investment and management/governance strategies of risk-reducing measures to enhance stability of food and water provision?
Research approach/activities: This project uses a global framework and stratification but will focus its research on regional analyses in order to achieve practical and policy relevant outcomes aimed at integrated decision support and knowledge systems. Main research blocks include:
(i) Based on agro-ecological zones stratification, assess the geographical pattern, magnitude and financial resources required for adaptation of food and water provision in response to climate change;
(ii) Quantify important regional/national co-benefits of adaptation strategies for food, agriculture and water sectors (e.g., pollution reduction, reduced health risks, mitigation of GHG emissions) and highlight economic and environmental co-benefits of integrated climate change adaptation strategies of agriculture, forestry and water sectors;
(iii) Highlight possible risks and surprises in climate change adaptation by investigating what changes of land use and water management a hypothetical rapid transition to an X-degree warmer world would entail;
(iv) As a methodological focus, establish procedures for multi-scale data harmonization, assimilation and data-model fusion in order to bridge spatial scales of observations and modelling tools and to establish exchange and fusion between crop models (at the farm/site level) and spatial agro-ecological models (at the cropping zone level); and
(v) For policy impacts, planning and outreach, establish (regional/national) knowledge and decision support tools enabling integrated cross-sector strategies for adaptation of food and water systems to climate change.
Linkages: This project falls within the cross-cutting climate change mitigation and adaptation F&W research cluster. It links with the project on ‘Adaptive decision support for water management’ and contributes to the projects on ‘Doubling food provision’ and ‘Water for food and agriculture’. The project is also directly related to the 3-year NSFC-IIASA collaboration project on ‘Assessing the Impact of Climate Change and Intensive Human Activities on China’s Agro-Ecosystems and its Supply Potentials’. The methodological components of multi-scale data harmonization and decision support tools will be developed jointly with the Advanced Systems Analysis Area.
