FACCE-JPI Knowledge Hub: MACSUR-Partner 117

Lead Research Organisation: University of Aberdeen
Department Name: Inst of Biological and Environmental Sci

Abstract

FACCE MACSUR2 is made up of partners from over 70 European research institutes, working in three themes focused on crop, livestock and trade modelling. The knowledge hub will use networking and exchanges to further advance European agricultural research capacity in modelling the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security. State-of-the-art climate change risk assessments will be developed for farming and food security at European and regional case study levels. MACSUR2 will build upon the strong links established by networking in MACSUR1 to address the following core objectives:
1. Further advancement of European agricultural research capacity, using networking and exchanges to bring together modelling groups and to link modellers more effectively with experimental researchers.
2. To maintain up-to-date results on climate impacts on agriculture and food security in line with selected core global socioeconomic and climate scenarios until 2050.
3. To develop a new state-of-the art Europe-wide climate change risk assessment for farming and food security
4. To build on the work of MACSUR1 in extending and developing training for 'integrated modellers' able to work across modelling disciplines and to provide integrated, stakeholder-relevant interpretations of modelling outcomes.
5. To develop additional regional integrated case studies for addressing region-specific climate and socioeconomic impacts, needs and chances for adaptation and mitigation.
6. To continue to engage with stakeholders including policy-makers and agro-food-chain representatives to ensure the relevance and impact of modelling approaches and outputs
Given the scientific excellence of the Knowledge Hub, MACSUR2 will address to a greater extent on the interests of policymakers and the agro-food chain, especially farmers.

Technical Summary

FACCE MACSUR2 aims to further advance European agricultural research capacity in modelling the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security, using networking and exchanges to synthesize the research outcomes and approaches of modelling groups and experimental researchers from over 70 institutes in 17 European countries. The overarching challenge is to further develop the pan-European capability in the development, use and interpretation of models to perform risk assessments of the impacts of climate change on European agriculture.
The core Objectives are:
1. Further advancement of European agricultural research capacity, using networking and exchanges to bring together modelling groups and to link modellers more effectively with experimental researchers.
2. To maintain up-to-date results on climate impacts on agriculture and food security in line with selected core global socioeconomic and climate scenarios until 2050.
3. To develop a new state-of-the art Europe-wide climate change risk assessment for farming and food security
4. To build on the work of phase 1 in extending and developing training for 'integrated modellers' able to work across modelling disciplines and to provide integrated, stakeholder-relevant interpretations of modelling outcomes.
5. To develop additional regional integrated case studies for addressing region-specific climate and socioeconomic impacts, needs and chances for adaptation and mitigation.
6. To continue to engage with stakeholders including policy-makers and agro-food-chain representatives to ensure the relevance and impact of modelling approaches and outputs
The MACSUR1 structure of hub coordination and CropM, LiveM and TradeM Themes will be continued in MACSUR2 but complemented by cross-cutting activities bringing together modelling approaches across disciplines to address subject- and region-specific issues.

Planned Impact

MACSUR2 aims to improve our understanding of how European agriculture can adapt to and mitigate climate change. It is therefore of direct relevance to policy makers and the producers and users of food in the European Union. The project is very high profile and is certain to attract considerable interest from these communities as it progresses. In order to ensure that we able to meet this demand for information we will extend and further develop activities undertaken in MACSUR1 to integrate dissemination within the project. Stakeholders will continue to be involved in the major events of the project and the cross-theme stakeholder group will work to further enhance the capacity for and effectiveness of stakeholder engagement in the development and application of modelling. Beyond Europe, it is expected that the activities of MACSUR2 will continue to contribute to the parallel, global modelling efforts of the AgMIP consortium, and build link to other groupings such as GRA (Global Research Alliance), JPI Climate and the ERA Net Plus on Climate Smart Agriculture

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description The FACCE-MACSUR project provide a platform for international scientist to come together and work on crop modelling in EUROPE. The University of Aberdeen participated mainly on the Scaling Exercise of the project. The objective was to show and quantify the impact of input data aggregation on different target variables. Three different target variables, SOC, yield and net primary production (NPP), were analysed in this exercise. For SOC an aggregation error of 50 -120 % was discovered with a decreasing effect for coarser resolutions (1km, 10km, 25km, 50km and 100km grid cells). Additionally, output data aggregation only marginally reduced differences of model outputs between models indicating that errors caused by deficient model structure are likely to persist even if requirements on the spatial resolution of model outputs are low. We discovered that the impact of soil data aggregation is stronger than the impact of the aggregation of climate data and is increased, if both data sets are aggregated. This could be shown for the target variable yield and NPP. For yield the aggregation effects show distinct patterns depending on the type of data being combined. Large negative aggregation effects were found in areas with soils characterized by high available water holding capacity and large positive aggregation effects in areas with soils of predominantly low available water holding capacity. The aggregation effect of climate data aggregation is for NPP slightly smaller than for yield. The analysis of the NPP data also showed increased aggregation effects for shorter time periods (<15 years), compared to a 30 year average. The aggregation effect has a larger impact on the vulnerability analysis, which reflects the greater impact of aggregation effects for years with extreme weather conditions. A finer spatial resolution of climate input data will not greatly improve simulations for long term averages of NPP or vulnerability, but might reduce the aggregation effect for shorter periods. The greatest changes are detected for the steps from 1 km to 10 km resolution and from 50 km to 100 km. During the analysis we also discussed, developed and used different approaches to calculate the aggregation effect. Overall, we were able to meet the main objective of quantifying the aggregation error for the three target variables SOC, yield and NPP.
Exploitation Route Outcomes of the modelling and scaling techniques can be used by others - following details outlined in the project publications
Sectors Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment

URL https://macsur.eu/
 
Description Crop-Soil Modelling Workshop Initiative 
Organisation Julich Research Centre
Country Germany 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Jannis Groh (Helmholz Forschungszentrum Julich) and Horst Gerke (ZALF) organised an Workshop for a model comparison on lysimeter measurements. I provided computersimulation results of DAYCENT that contribiuted to the study.
Collaborator Contribution The partners collected my simulation results (and the results of other partners). These data were compared and discussed on a workshop. During peparing a manuscript for publication there was an online discussion about the results and data analysis.
Impact A publication about this first step of this study is currentlty under review.
Start Year 2019
 
Description Crop-Soil Modelling Workshop Initiative 
Organisation Leibniz Association
Department Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research
Country Germany 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Jannis Groh (Helmholz Forschungszentrum Julich) and Horst Gerke (ZALF) organised an Workshop for a model comparison on lysimeter measurements. I provided computersimulation results of DAYCENT that contribiuted to the study.
Collaborator Contribution The partners collected my simulation results (and the results of other partners). These data were compared and discussed on a workshop. During peparing a manuscript for publication there was an online discussion about the results and data analysis.
Impact A publication about this first step of this study is currentlty under review.
Start Year 2019
 
Description MACSUR WP3 Scaling Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact Presenting and disucssing the results of the different participants. The results ware also analysed regarding future publications.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Oral presentation at the iCROPM 2016 International Crop Modelling Symposium 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Oral presentation at the iCROPM 2016 International Crop Modelling Symposium. I presented my results on the work in the Scaling Exercise of the MACSUR project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Oral presentation at the international Environmental Modelling and Software conference in Toulouse 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Abstract submission and oral presentation with the title: Effects of climate data aggregation on regional NPP modelling
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1563&context=iemssconference
 
Description Oral presentation at the international conference of the EGU in Vienna 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Abstract submission and oral presentation with the title: Impact of climate aggregation over different scales on regional NPP modelling
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/EGU2016-15736.pdf
 
Description Poster presentation at the EGU conference 2017 in Vienna 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Abstract submission and poster presentation with the titla: Impact of input data aggregation on simulated NPP of wheat
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2017/EGU2017-16522-1.pdf
 
Description Session convener at the EGU General Assembly 2016 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session convener at the EGU General Assembly 2016. The size of the session was about 30 people, but the conference was larger. I organized this session with colleagues to provide on the General Assembly a plattform to present there work.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016