Abstract
Regional impact studies are needed to explore possible adaptation options to climate change. We estimated impacts and adaptation options for future scenarios that feature different assumptions regarding climate, cropping pattern and access to irrigation with two bio-economic farm models. Farm profit, soil organic matter balance and labor input are used as indicators of farm performance. The difference between the baseline and the alternative configurations computed by models is referred as adaptation potential, indicative of the adaptation options including the corresponding changes in cropping patterns. Our results show that as long as there is sufficient access to irrigation water, there is little incentive to change current practices, as farming is at the economic optimum, has a positive soil organic matter balance and labor requirements can be met. Conversely, if irrigation is no longer possible, drastic impacts occur, causing a need to sustainably adjust on-going farm practices. Adaptation through changed crop selection reduced losses to some extent. We conclude that the use of bio-economic models can assist in evaluating the qualitative findings of participatory studies by quantitatively assessing possible climate change impacts and adaptation measures. Strong impacts of climate change, however, cannot be offset by changes in cropping patterns and need further adaptation measures.
Highlights
Climate change is one of the major environmental problems of the 21st century that will strongly influence global agricultural production, mainly due to ever-increasing temperatures and fluctuating precipitation patterns across different regions of the globe [1,2]
For 2015 climate with irrigation as an option (2015 irrigation) both optimization models found solutions slightly better than the 2015 baseline in terms of economic performance, showing that the 2015 baseline farm organization is close to the economic optimum (Table 6)
Irrigation water was completely used under profit maximization conditions
Summary
Climate change is one of the major environmental problems of the 21st century that will strongly influence global agricultural production, mainly due to ever-increasing temperatures and fluctuating precipitation patterns across different regions of the globe [1,2]. There has been an increasing spatiotemporal trend in the occurrence, intensity and duration of heatwaves, droughts and unpredictable heavy rainfalls attributed to climate change [3]. Agricultural production in southwestern France exhibits an uncertain future due to climate change, and especially increasing temperatures, decreasing rainfalls and less crop water availability. Groundwater recharge in this region is likely to decrease by 50% in the future [8]. A complete ban on irrigation in the region may be a potential future scenario, shifting the systems under rainfed farming Against this background, there is a need to quantitatively assess the impacts of climate change at farm level and suggest subsequent adaptation options for the farming systems in the region
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
