Climate change and broadacre livestock production across southern Australia. 2. Adaptation options via grassland management

2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afshin Ghahramani ◽  
Andrew D. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Livestock Production ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
Adaptation Options ◽  
Over Time

Climate change is predicted to cause a significant reduction in the productivity of grasslands and the livestock industry across southern Australia. We have used the GRAZPLAN biophysical simulation models to assess a range of pasture management practices as adaptation options under the SRES A2 global change scenario. The modelling analysis spanned four dimensions: space (25 representative locations), time (2030, 2050, 2070, and a historical reference period of 1970–99), livestock enterprises (five), and management (four adaptation options at different levels). Climate projection uncertainty was taken into account by considering climates from four global climate models. The effectiveness of adaptation options varied widely among enterprises and locations, over time, and under the four projected future climates. Increased soil fertility by adding phosphorus and addition of an area of lucerne to the feed-base were predicted to have the greatest effect in recovering from the negative impact of climate change on profitability. In high-rainfall zones in particular, and compared with the historical period, the most profitable option could return the profitability of livestock production systems to historical levels at 68%, 52%, and 32% of the representative locations at 2030, 2050, and 2070, respectively. At 2030, increased soil fertility, adding lucerne to the feed-base, and confinement feeding in summer recovered overall profit fully at 52%, 28%, and 12% of locations. Removing annual legumes in an attempt to preserve ground cover was ineffective as an adaptation to changing climate. For the majority of location × livestock enterprise combinations, there was at least one individual incremental adaptation that could recover the declines in the profitability at 2030, but effectiveness decreased over time after 2030. It is unlikely that the examined single climate change adaptations to the feed-base of southern Australian livestock production systems can return them to profitability in the second half of the century.

scholarly journals The impact of climate change in wheat and barley yields in the Iberian Peninsula

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Virgílio A. Bento ◽  
Andreia F. S. Ribeiro ◽  
Ana Russo ◽  
Célia M. Gouveia ◽  
Rita M. Cardoso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Early Winter ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Spring Maximum

AbstractThe impact of climate change on wheat and barley yields in two regions of the Iberian Peninsula is here examined. Regression models are developed by using EURO-CORDEX regional climate model (RCM) simulations, forced by ERA-Interim, with monthly maximum and minimum air temperatures and monthly accumulated precipitation as predictors. Additionally, RCM simulations forced by different global climate models for the historical period (1972–2000) and mid-of-century (2042–2070; under the two emission scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) are analysed. Results point to different regional responses of wheat and barley. In the southernmost regions, results indicate that the main yield driver is spring maximum temperature, while further north a larger dependence on spring precipitation and early winter maximum temperature is observed. Climate change seems to induce severe yield losses in the southern region, mainly due to an increase in spring maximum temperature. On the contrary, a yield increase is projected in the northern regions, with the main driver being early winter warming that stimulates earlier growth. These results warn on the need to implement sustainable agriculture policies, and on the necessity of regional adaptation strategies.

Current issues and controversies in assessing the environmental impacts of livestock production.

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (044) ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith L. Capper
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Livestock Production ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Environment Impact ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Specific Practice ◽  
Over Time

Abstract The environment impact of livestock production is one of the most significant issues within agriculture. Global concerns over climate change, resource use, pollution and other environment indicators means that producers must implement practices and systems to reduce environmental impacts, yet this may only be achieved through assessments that allow impacts to be quantified, benchmarked and improved over time. Although environmental indicators are widely accepted, the metrics by which these are assessed continue to evolve over time as assessment objectives gain clarity and focus, and as the science relating to controversial topics (e.g. global warming or carbon sequestration) becomes more refined. however, significant negative trade-offs may occur between different metrics and denominators such that a specific practice or system may appear to have greater or lesser impacts, depending on assessment methodology. A number of tools and models have been developed to empower producers in quantifying environmental impacts, which will be increasingly important is satisfying future consumers' hunger for information as well as food. These tools must be supplied in tandem with information as to the potential consequences of changing management practices and systems. At present however, tools available are based on differing methodologies, are often opaque in their background calculations and do not necessarily account for all the factors that influence environmental impacts from livestock. There is a clear need for robust tools that can be used as standards for assessing environmental impacts from the global livestock industry and that go beyond GHG emissions to produce a more rounded holistic assessment.

scholarly journals Appropriateness of Potential Evapotranspiration Models for Climate Change Impact Analysis in Yarlung Zangbo River Basin, China

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pan ◽  
Xu ◽  
Xuan ◽  
Gu ◽  
Bai
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Climate Change Impact ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Potential Evapotranspiration ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Yarlung Zangbo River ◽  
The Future ◽  
Change Impact

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important element in the water and energy cycle. Potential evapotranspiration (PET) is an important measurement of ET. Its accuracy has significant influence on agricultural water management, irrigation planning, and hydrological modelling. However, whether current PET models are applicable under climate change or not, is still a question. In this study, five frequently used PET models were chosen, including one combination model (the FAO Penman-Monteith model, FAO-PM), two temperature-based models (the Blaney-Criddle and the Hargreaves models) and two radiation-based models (the Makkink and the Priestley-Taylor models), to estimate their appropriateness in the historical and future periods under climate change impact on the Yarlung Zangbo river basin, China. Bias correction methods were not only applied to the temperature output of Global Climate Models (GCMs), but also for radiation, humidity, and wind speed. It was demonstrated that the results from the Blaney-Criddle and Makkink models provided better agreement with the PET obtained by the FAO-PM model in the historical period. In the future period, monthly PET estimated by all five models show positive trends. The changes of PET under RCP8.5 are much higher than under RCP2.6. The radiation-based models show better appropriateness than the temperature-based models in the future, as the root mean square error (RMSE) value of the former models is almost half of the latter models. The radiation-based models are recommended for use to estimate PET under climate change in the Yarlung Zangbo river basin.

scholarly journals Carbon fractions and soil fertility affected by tillage and sugarcane residue management an Xanthic Udult

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 2921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iara Maria Lopes ◽  
Shirlei Almeida Assunção ◽  
Ana Paula Pessim de Oliveira ◽  
Lúcia Helena Cunha dos Anjos ◽  
Marcos Gervasio Pereira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Conventional Tillage ◽  
Residue Management ◽  
Soil Tillage ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
Carbon Fractions

The gradual change in management practices in sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) production from burning straw to a green harvesting system, as well as the use of minimum soil tillage during field renovation, may affect soil fertility and soil organic matter (SOM) contents. The objectives of this work were to investigate the influence of sugar cane production systems on: (1) soil fertility parameters; (2) on physical carbon fractions; (3) and on humic substance fractions, in a long-term experiment, comparing two soil tillage and two residue management systems an Xanthic Udult, in the coastal tableland region of Espírito Santo State, Brazil. The treatments consisted of plots (conventional tillage (CT) or minimum tillage (MT)) and subplots (residue burned or unburned at harvesting), with five replicates The highest values of Ca2+ + Mg2+ and total organic carbon (TOC) were observed in the MT system in all soil layers, while high values of K+ were observed in the 0.1-0.2 m layer. The CT associated with the burned residue management negatively influenced the TOC values, especially in the 0.1-0.2 and 0.2-0.4 m layers. The carbon in the humin fraction and organic matter associated with minerals were significantly different among the tillage systems; the MT showed higher values than the CT. However, there were no significant differences between the sugarcane residue management treatments. Overall, fractioning the SOM allowed for a better understanding of tillage and residue management systems effects on the soil properties.

Effects of Hydrologic Model Choice and Calibration on the Portrayal of Climate Change Impacts

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 762-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo A. Mendoza ◽  
Martyn P. Clark ◽  
Naoki Mizukami ◽  
Andrew J. Newman ◽  
Michael Barlage ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
Hydrologic Models ◽  
Climate System Model

Abstract The assessment of climate change impacts on water resources involves several methodological decisions, including choices of global climate models (GCMs), emission scenarios, downscaling techniques, and hydrologic modeling approaches. Among these, hydrologic model structure selection and parameter calibration are particularly relevant and usually have a strong subjective component. The goal of this research is to improve understanding of the role of these decisions on the assessment of the effects of climate change on hydrologic processes. The study is conducted in three basins located in the Colorado headwaters region, using four different hydrologic model structures [PRMS, VIC, Noah LSM, and Noah LSM with multiparameterization options (Noah-MP)]. To better understand the role of parameter estimation, model performance and projected hydrologic changes (i.e., changes in the hydrology obtained from hydrologic models due to climate change) are compared before and after calibration with the University of Arizona shuffled complex evolution (SCE-UA) algorithm. Hydrologic changes are examined via a climate change scenario where the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) change signal is used to perturb the boundary conditions of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model configured at 4-km resolution. Substantial intermodel differences (i.e., discrepancies between hydrologic models) in the portrayal of climate change impacts on water resources are demonstrated. Specifically, intermodel differences are larger than the mean signal from the CCSM–WRF climate scenario examined, even after the calibration process. Importantly, traditional single-objective calibration techniques aimed to reduce errors in runoff simulations do not necessarily improve intermodel agreement (i.e., same outputs from different hydrologic models) in projected changes of some hydrological processes such as evapotranspiration or snowpack.

scholarly journals Climate change and broadacre livestock production across southern Australia. 3. Adaptation options via livestock genetic improvement

2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Moore ◽  
Afshin Ghahramani
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Genetic Improvement ◽  
Livestock Production ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Pasture Production ◽  
Beef Cow ◽  
Global Circulation Models ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Adaptation Options

Climate change is predicted to reduce the productivity of the broadacre livestock industries across southern Australia; to date there has been no formal evaluation of the potential of genetic improvement in cattle or sheep to ameliorate the impacts of changing climates. We used the GRAZPLAN simulation models to assess selection of five traits of sheep and cattle as adaptation options under the SRES A2 global change scenario. Analysis of the breeding strategies was carried out for 25 representative locations, five livestock enterprises and three future years (2030, 2050, 2070). Uncertainty in future climates was taken into account by considering projected climates from four global circulation models. For three sheep enterprises, breeding for greater fleece growth (at constant body size) was predicted to produce the greatest improvements in forage conversion efficiency, and so it was the most effective genetic adaptation option. For beef cow and steer enterprises, breeding for larger body size was most effective; for beef cows, however, this conclusion relied on per-animal costs (including provision of bulls) remaining stable as body size increases. Increased conception rates proved to be less effective but potentially viable as an adaptation in beef cow and crossbred ewe enterprises. In the southern Australian environments that were analysed, our modelling suggests that breeding for tolerance to heat stress is unlikely to improve the performance of livestock production systems even at 2070. Genetic improvement of livestock was able to recover much less of the impact of climate change on profitability at drier locations where the need for adaptation is likely to be greatest. Combinations of feedbase and livestock genetic adaptations are likely to complement one another as the former alter the amount of forage that can be consumed, while the latter affect the efficiency with which consumed forage is converted to animal products. Climate change impacts on pasture production across southern Australia are likely to have only small effects on methane emissions intensity, as are a range of candidate genetic and feedbase adaptations to climate change; methane emissions per hectare in future climates will therefore be driven mainly by changes in livestock numbers due to alterations in pasture productivity.

Climate change and Australian livestock systems: impacts, research and policy issues

2008 ◽  
Vol 48 (7) ◽  
pp. 780 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Howden ◽  
S. J. Crimp ◽  
C. J. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Forage Production ◽  
Risk Management Strategies ◽  
Operational Systems ◽  
Assess Climate Change ◽  
The Many ◽  
Adaptation Options

The recent changes in Australia’s climate, the likelihood of further changes over the next decades to centuries, and the likely significant impacts of these changes on the Australian livestock industries, provide increasing urgency to explore adaptation options more effectively. Climate and atmospheric changes are likely to impact on the quantity and reliability of forage production; forage quality; thermal stress on livestock; water demands for both animal needs and for growing forage; pest, disease and weed challenges; land degradation processes; and various social and economic aspects including trade. Potential adaptation options are available for moderate climate changes, with these often being variations of existing climate risk management strategies. However, to date there are few Australian examples where these adaptations have been assessed systematically on any scale (e.g. enterprise, regional, whole of industry or national). Nor have many studies been undertaken in a way that (i) effectively harness industry knowledge, (ii) undertake climate change analyses in the framework of existing operational systems, or (iii) assess climate change in the context of other socioeconomic or technical changes. It is likely that there are limits to the effectiveness of existing adaptations under more severe climate changes. In such cases more systemic changes in resource allocation need considering, such as targeted diversification of production systems and livelihoods. Dealing with the many barriers to effective adaptation will require ‘mainstreaming’ climate change into policies covering a range of scales, responsibilities and issues. This mainstreaming will facilitate the development of comprehensive, dynamic and long lasting policy solutions. The integrative nature of climate change problems requires science to include integrative elements in the search for solutions: a willingness to apply integrated rather than disciplinary science and a strengthening of the interface with decision-makers.

scholarly journals Managed Retreat Components and Costing in a Coastal Setting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Samuel Olufson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Adaptation Strategy ◽  
Adaptation Option ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Adaptation Options ◽  
Over Time

<p>Climate change impacts are beginning to be felt across the world. Therefore, the development and understanding of adaptation options is becoming more important. Sea-level rise and its associated impacts are predicted to continue and accelerate well into the next century. As such, it is important that adaptation options which reduce risks associated with sea-level rise are developed and are well understood. Managed retreat is one such option. While research on managed retreat is increasing, there is a lack of literature that identifies what managed retreat comprises, how to plan and stage the option over time, and how to cost it as an adaptation option.  This thesis aims to address this gap in the literature by answering the following three questions: (1) what are the issues related to implementing managed retreat as an adaptation strategy in coastal areas, now, and moving into the future?; (2) what are the components of managed retreat?; and (3) what framework could be developed for costing managed retreat?  A qualitative ‘desk-top’ approach was taken to deconstruct the components of managed retreat across space and time and to develop a framework for costing the components as part of an adaptation strategy. An in-depth analysis of literature, enabled an understanding of managed retreat implementation, and also informed the development of a component typology and costing framework for the adaptation option. The typology and framework were then tested for relevance and utility for decision making through a series of semi-structured discussions with key informants working in climate change adaptation.  Using the component typology and costing framework, a new approach is presented for staging and costing managed retreat, over time and in different contexts. The typology and framework contribute knowledge and guidance for local governments and infrastructure agencies when discussing managed retreat with their communities, for identifying and staging managed retreat, and for the costing of components. It does this by presenting components in stages as overlapping and parallel pathways, providing groupings of components according to types of costs, and identifying appropriate costing methodologies that enable the implementation of managed retreat. To conclude, the thesis suggests areas for future research on managed retreat.</p>

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