Modelling the impact of climate change on agriculture in Europe

Abstract

The agricultural land represents the most important form of land use, accounting for almost 48% of the European land area. Europe- Despite its relatively small share of global agriculture land total area (9.8%), has been one of the world’s largest and most productive suppliers of food and fibre. Europe accounted for 17.6% of the global cereal production during 2014–2018, and average yields in EU countries were 6.8% higher than the world average in the same period. As this chapter shows the climate change will pose substantial challenge for provisioning but also for other ecosystem services. The role of modelling in managing impacts and developing adaptation strategies is crucial as demonstrated through several examples. As the agroecosystem models are treasure troves of agronomy knowledge, their further development should be seen as on of the research priorities within the continent´s agricultural research.