Climate change and agriculture – meeting the challenges ... · Implications of climate change for...
Transcript of Climate change and agriculture – meeting the challenges ... · Implications of climate change for...
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Climate change and agriculture – meeting the challenges and opportunities
Peter Brown, Steven Crimp, Rohan Nelson and
Mark Howden
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Overview
� What makes us vulnerable?
� What impacts may occur?
� What can farmers and natural resource
managers do?
– manage impacts
– build adaptive capacity
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What makes us vulnerable?
Vulnerability = Impacts - Adaptation
Managerisk
Build adaptive capacity
Impacts a function of the degree of climate change and the sensitivity to this change
Adaptation actions to enhance the capacity to cope, respond, thrive!
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1) Climate data Rainfall & temperature projections
Agroecological models Production models
2) Production Impacts Crop/pasture growth Water, energy, etc
4) Social Impacts Vulnerability and resilience, demographic & social change
socioeconomic livelihoods analysis
5) Community/industry
impacts
Scenario analysis
Policy/decision options
Productivity, profitability, land use, sectoral resource flows
Bioeconomic, PE & GE models
3) Economic Impacts
What approaches can we use to predict impacts, and evaluate adaptation options?
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Future ‘climate’ changes: Australia
� Higher temperatures (1 to 6oC by 2070)
� Lower rainfall in the southwest and south-east but possibly more monsoonal rain in the north
– reduced soil moisture and river flow (e.g. 16 to 35% reduction in MDB flows by 2050), water quality issues too
� Higher potential evaporation
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Implications of climate change for agriculture
� Effects of climate are pervasive
– many effects resulting from extremes
– but mean climate important too
� Challenges in southern Australia
� Possible opportunities in northern Australia
� CO2 effect positive for production, but dependent on management
� Existing studies patchy
– neither the detailed system nor the broader economic analyses comprehensively undertaken
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Water resources
� Reduced runoff and soil moisture.
� Changes in supply & peak stream flow timing.
� Increased irrigation demand &competition for water betweencities, irrigators, industry and environmental flows.
� Deterioration of water qualityduring drought & fire episodes
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Agriculture
� Enhanced plant growth due to more carbon dioxide may be offset by warmer and drier conditions.
� Reduced wheat yield likely as well as quality declines due to reduced grain protein and more heat-shock proteins.
� Reduced grape quality.
� Vigour of pasture growth may increase, but forage quality may decline.
� More heat-stress for cattle, and less cold-stress mortality for lambs.
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Forests
� Climate change could affect a hierarchy of interacting issues such as changes in hydrology, fire regimes, pests, and plant composition.
� Native forests are often located where growth is limited by nutrients and water, so the CO2 fertilisation effect is uncertain.
� Number of extreme fire danger days (Total Fire Ban) may rise 10-40% by 2020 and 20-120% by 2050.
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What makes us vulnerable?
Vulnerability = Impacts - Adaptation
Managerisk
Build adaptive capacity
Adaptation actions to enhance the capacity to cope, respond, thrive!
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Adaptive capacity
� Human
– Education
� Social
– Partnerships, internet use
� Natural
– Degradation, productivity
� Physical
– Area cropped, diversity
� Financial
– Average income, off-farm income
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0
1
2
3
4
5Human
Social
NaturalPhysical
Financial
Most vulnerable
Moderate vulnerability
Least vulnerable
Adaptive capacity & livelihoods
Carney 1998
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Mapping vulnerability
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most vulnerable moderately vulnerable
least vulnerable
(Nelson et al. 2005)
ImpactsExtreme pasture growth
conditions
Adaptive capacityHuman, social, natural, physical &
financial
Vulnerability = impacts - adaptation
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1) Climate data Seasonal forecasting & climate change projections
Agroecological models Production models
2) Production Impacts Crop/pasture growth Water, energy, etc
4) Social Impacts Vulnerability and resilience, demographic & social change
socioeconomic livelihoods analysis
5) Community/industry
adaptation
Scenario analysis
Policy/decision
options
Productivity, profitability, land use, sectoral resource flows
Bioeconomic, PE & GE models
3) Economic Impacts
What approaches can we use to predict impacts, and evaluate adaptation options?
Adaptation
Behavioural
responses
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Possible On-Farm Adaptation
� Develop additional climate risk offset approaches:• zero tillage and other minimum disturbance techniques;
• retaining residue,
• extending fallows and staggering planting times,
• row spacing and planting density, and
• altering fertilizer rates to maintain grain or fruit quality consistent with the prevailing climate.
� More opportunistic plantings:• accounting for environmental condition (e.g. soil moisture), and
• climate (e.g. seasonal climate forecasting)
� Expand routine record keeping:• Weather
• Production
• Degradation,
• Pest, diseases and weed invasion
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Possible On-Farm Adaptation
� Improve efficiency of water distribution systems:• reduce leakage and evaporation
• Improve irrigation practices, and
• moisture monitoring
� Learning from farmers in currently more marginal areas.
� Selection of varieties with appropriate thermal time and vernalisation requirements:
• heat shock resistance,
• drought tolerance,
• high protein levels,
• resistance to new pests and diseases and perhaps that set flowers in hot/windy conditions
� Diversifying income including through altering the integration with other farming activities
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Impacts: Wheat Case Study
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The value of adaptation
• Without adaptation the risk increases from about 12% at levels of 400ppm CO2 to about 45% at 700ppm
• With adaptation, a small likelihood of reduced production up to CO2 levels of 450ppm, then much lower probabilities thereafter.
•Adaptation: new varieties and earlier planting window•Buys time
Probability of productivity
decline
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Adaptation pre-conditions
� Confidence that climate changes are real and will continue.
� Motivated to avoid risks and use opportunities.
� Demonstrated technical and other options available and implementation issues understood.
� Support for transitions to new locations, landuses and practices.
� Monitoring for continuing improvements in adaptation (what is
working, what is not and why).
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Adaptation is all about creating opportunities
Source: Southern Queensland Farming Systems (Vol 1, Issue 2, 2006)
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� CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems
� Steven Crimp and Peter Brown
�(02) 6242 1649 or 6242 1562
� [email protected] or [email protected]
� www.cse.csiro.au
THANK YOU
Choosing shorts or long underwear on a
particular day is about weather; the ratio of
shorts to long underwear in the drawer is about
climate.
Charles Wohlforth, The whale and the supercomputer. On the northern
front of climate change, North Point Press, 2004, p 150.
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Adaptation/mitigation see saw
High mitigation
now
Low mitigation
now
Higher impacts and
adaptation later
Lower impacts and
adaptation later
• Can we phase in adaptations to get a better outcome ?
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National
Regional
Local
Polycentric Nested
Adaptation pre-conditions
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National
Regional
Local
Science as a communication medium
Polycentric Nested
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Adaptation and mitigation
TEMPORALnow future
SPATIALfield farm catchment region state
AdaptMitigate
ECONOMICenterprise business industry sector
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2030 projections for NSW
For risk assessment, it is important to consider extreme scenarios, even
though they may have low probability.
Low Global Warming
Estimate of Uncertainty Change
High Global Warming Estimate of Uncertainty change
Annual average temperature +0.6 °C ±0.2°C +1.3°C ±0.6°C
Average sea level +3 cm +17 cm
Annual average rainfall 0% ±6.5% 0 % ±15% Seasonal average rainfall Summer Autumn Winter Spring
+1.5% ±8% +1.5% ±8% -3% ±6.5% -3% ±6.5%
+3.5% ±18.5 % +3.5% ±18.5% -7.5% ±15% -7.5% ±15%
Annual average potential evaporation +2.4% ±1.9% +5.6% ±4.4%
Annual average number of hot days (>35°C)
+1 day +25 days
Annual average number cold nights (<0°C)
-5 days -30 days
Annual average number of very high & extreme forest fire danger days
b
+1 day +10 days
Extreme daily rainfall intensity (1 in 40 year event)
c
0% +6% (east) -5% (west)
Carbon dioxide concentration +73ppm +102ppm
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Australian temperature trends