Modelling to Evaluate Climate Resilience of Crop Rotations Under Climate Change

Abstract

Diversification of crop rotations is considered as an option to increase the resilience of European crop production under climate change. Although crop rotation design and management has been identified as an important measure to adapt to and mitigate climate change, most studies on climate change impact or adaptation so far use single-year simulations and/or single crop assessments. Crop response to various management options within a growing season is generally taken into account by most crop models. However, if simulations neglect processes and fluxes between growing seasons and potential carry-over effects related to agronomic management, the long-term sustainability of adaptation and mitigation strategies cannot be properly evaluated. Therefore, the integrated assessment of impacts, adaptation and mitigation options under current and future climatic conditions requires a continuous long-term analysis of crop sequences to take into account carry-over effects as in real conditions. The present paper provides information on crop rotation aspects, which should be considered in modelling, presents the current state of modelling for climate impact assessment, address points of uncertainty and missing aspects in modelling and draws an outlook on potential future developments with special emphasis on crop rotations. In conclusion, crop models require suitable experimental data to parameterize additional crops, which were so far not sufficiently investigated to cope with multiple opportunities in crop rotations.