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MEDPRO “Prospective analysis for the Mediterranean Region” Project.
WP4a “Management of environment and natural resources, including
climate change, water, agriculture and biodiversity in coastal areas”
“TASK A and B group meeting”
14-15 July IAMB Bari
Minutes
Participants’ list
Francesco Bosello, FEEM
Paloma Esteve, UPM
Roula Khadra ,IAMB
Nicola Lamaddalena, IAMB
Alessandra Scardino, IAMB
Pasquale Steduto, FAO (as invited participant not part of MEDPRO consortium)
Consuelo Varela, UPM
Aims
Defining:
(a) Organization and coordination of work for WP4a Tasks A (agriculture) and B (water)
(b) Information fluxes between WP4a Task A and B to Task D (integrated economic
assessment)
(c) Information fluxes with WP4a to WP8
(d) Scenarios
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Minutes
Within WP4a Tasks A and B will address three different research issues: pressures on water
resources in the MED 11 area, impacts of those pressures on agriculture, analysis of the
effectiveness of possible adaptation measures.
The analysis of pressures on water resources in the MED 11 area will be tackled by IAMB and
UPM:
1 - UPM will conduct an analysis of the major environmental, economic and institutional factors
driving water use at country level in the Mediterranean region. This analysis will be conducted
using an econometric approach and, for this reason, the countries included in this analysis will
depend on data availability although the intention is to include all Medpro countries as well as the
EU Mediterranean countries for comparison purposes. Although the agricultural sector will be
treated in more detail in this analysis, the focus will not be narrowed solely to water for agricultural
use and therefore the picture provided will cover the water “production factor” as a whole. Once
identified, these relations will be used to project possible trends in water uses in the future
according to defined scenarios of economic growth and climate change. Data gathering for the
econometric estimation has already started. Responsible of this part of the research is the UPM team
(Consuelo Varela-Ortega, Paloma Esteve and Irene Blanco).
UPM will also conduct a more in-depth specific work in one selected Mediterranean country (Syria
is the preliminary option).. This detailed analysis will be based on the methodology already
developed in Spain at the farm, regional and basin levels. It will provide insights on the effects of
water and agricultural policies and the impacts of climate change on the socio-economic and
environmental conditions of the country selected as well as their vulnerability and adaptation
capacity. Extension to another country cannot be assured due to budget and data availability
constraints. Responsible of this part of the research is the UPM team (Consuelo Varela-Ortega,
Paloma Esteve and Irene Blanco).
2 - The link between water availability and impacts on agricultural activity in the MED11 regions
(or a sub-region) will be investigated by IAMB and UPM. This research will potentially integrate
data from two sources. If possible, information from the FAO AquaCrop model will be used.
AquaCrop is a water-driven simulation model that simulates the yield response to water of most of the
major herbaceous crops cultivated worldwide. Contacts with Dr. Pasquale Steduto (one of the model
developers) and deputy director of the FAO Land and Water Department, have been taken. If this will
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prove to be insufficient or infeasible with respect to the timing of MEDPRO, IAMB can produce this
information in house, elaborating on its data base.
Responsible for the integration of AquaCrop data and the final estimation of impacts on the agricultural
sector are Nicola Lamaddalena with IAMB team and Consuelo Varela-Ortega. The impact on the
agricultural sector will be considered in terms of changes in crop yields and changes in lands use (crops’
surface) at the country level when possible.
3 - The research on the effectiveness of different adaptation measures and their possible viability in
the MED11 region will be jointly conducted by UPM and IAMB. This phase of the investigation
will build upon existing knowledge, and aims to derive perspective insights i.e. identifying those
measures that could be more promising according to future development trends in the MED11 area.
UPM will focus more on institutional and farm practices while IAMB more on technical measures
and water management. Particularly insightful success stories will be included as examples of good
practices. The first step is a throughout survey work. Nicola Lamaddalena with IAMB team and
Consuelo Varela-Ortega, Paloma Esteve and Irene Blanco from UPM are responsible for this.
4 - Tasks A and B then will transfer data to Task D (integrated economic assessment). The main
data transferred will be projected changes in major crops’ productivity in the MED 11 region with a
country detail. The possibility to integrate some information of land use change will be explored.
Finally the possibility to economically assess the effectiveness of adaptation measures will be
investigated if the coverage and quantitative insights provided by the adaptation analysis will
suffice. Adaptation will be economically modelled as lower impacts, but at the expenses of a higher
investment in protection expenditures (more investment, less consumption) . Francesco Bosello
(FEEM) is responsible of task D
The same data will be transferred to Wp8. Responsible for the collection of data and transmission to
WP8 is Francesco Bosello FEEM.
5 - Scenarios: relating to the scenarios proposed by ISIS, for WP4a purposes, a distinction should
be made between environmental and social economic inputs, both necessary for the prospectic
assessment by WP4a.
Concerning the first, it is reasonable to investigate just a high emission high temperature increase
scenario and a low emission low temperature increase scenario. Indeed, it is unlikely that the
climatic pressures (primarily temperature) will diverge a lot from say the Global EU-MED upside
scenario and the EU-MED divergent scenario (say the “good ones”), and between the Trend
scenario and the Global EU-MED downsize scenario (say the “bad ones”). With respect to this
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WP4a proposes to assess impacts for 1.2°C and 3.1°C in 2050 consistent with the temperature range
of the A2 IPCC SRES scenario and with a temperature in 2100 below 2°C and above 5°C.
Concerning the second, a limited number of data are necessary to run WP4a exercises, basically
GDP, population, rate of technological progress. WP4a would like to use the same information
chosen by other MEDPRO WPs. Accordingly WP3 on demography, WP5 on economic
development and integration, will be contacted for coordination.
A first round of preliminary findings will be discussed internally during the November MEDPRO
meeting with the purpose of getting a feed-back to the teams involved in WP4a as well as a first
round of comments to the wider MEDPRO group.
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