Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on a Grassland Dominated Austrian Landscape

Climate change poses fundamental challenges on agricultural production and the environment. Case studies at different spatial scales indicate heterogeneous climate change impacts and adaptation responses. Consequently, spatial heterogeneity has to be taken into account in order to derive efficient mitigation and adaptation strategies for private land users and public authorities. We apply an integrated modelling framework IMF at the farm level in a grassland region in Austria to analyze climate change impacts on land use management and its economic, abiotic, and biotic effects. Three climate change scenarios cover a range of future precipitation patterns but a unique temperature trend of +1.5°C up to 2040. Policy scenarios are modelled to prove the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation measures. Our results show that the direct impacts of climate change and the impacts of modelled adaptation responses on farm gross margins as well as abiotic and biotic environmental indicators (e.g. CO2 emissions, changes in soil organic carbon) can be substantial. Assuming future price and cost trajectories from the literature, gross margins increase between 2% and 4% on average. A closer look to individual farms reveals the need to coordinate mitigation and adaptation policies in order to reduce adverse environmental and ecological effects, i.e. trade-offs, and increase synergies between environmental outcomes.