Annex I – IPCC definitions¶

Climate change

“Climate change , an alteration in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer, is a fundamental reference point for framing the different management themes and challenges....” (Lavell et al. 2012)

Extreme events

“Comprise a facet of climate variability under stable or changing climate conditions. They are defined as the occurrence of a value of a weather or climate variable above (or below) a threshold value near the upper (or lower) ends (‘tails’) of the range of observed values of the variable” (Lavell et al. 2012)

Climate risks

“Climate risk is determined not only by the climate and weather events (the hazards) but also by the exposure and vulnerability to these hazards...” (Cardona et al. 2012)

Climate hazard

“Climate hazard refers to the possible, future occurrence of natural or human-induced physical events that may have adverse effects on vulnerable and exposed elements” (Cardona et al. 2012)

Exposure

Exposure refers to the inventory of elements in an area in which hazard events may occur. Exposure is employed to refer to the presence (location) of people, livelihoods, environmental services and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places that could be adversely affected by physical events and which, thereby, are subject to potential future harm, loss, or damage (Cardona et al. 2012; Lavell et al. 2012)

Vulnerability

“.. to be vulnerable to an extreme event, it is necessary to also be exposed.....vulnerability refers to the propensity of exposed elements such as human beings, their livelihoods, and assets to suffer adverse effects when impacted by hazard events .... While vulnerability is a key concept for both disaster risk and climate change adaptation...... Vulnerability can be seen as situation-specific, interacting with a hazard event to generate risk” (Cardona et al. 2012)

Annex II – Description of Agri Adapt project¶

Agri Adapt was and EU Life funded project between the research institutes of: The Lake Constance Foundation (Bodensee Stiftung- Germany), the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Fundación Global Nature (Spain), Solagro (France). “With the LIFE Agri Adapt project, the project partners illustrate the state of agriculture in Europe in terms of current vulnerability to the effects of climate change, how the climate will develop over the next 30 years, and how farms can reduce their future vulnerability through sustainable adaptation measures”.

The objectives of Life Agri Adapt project was to show that European agricultural systems, livestock, arable and permeant crop systems could become more climate resilient with more tailored adaptation measure implemented at farm level to make them more feasible and sustainable, as well as crosscutting with other environmental issues. To do this Life Agri Adapt collaborated across Europe with 126 farmers in each of the four main EU Climate Risk Regions. This research was conducted over three years in order to learn, test and support farmer who were implementing adaptation solutions at farm level.

Some key findings of AgriAdpt project relevant for this report were:

Ø EU-wide mandatory sustainable adaptation actions are needed to improve soil fertility

Ø Crop diversification is as important as crop rotation - At least 3 crops in the rotation (farms < 30 ha), at least 4 crops in the rotation (farms > 30 ha)

Ø Reduction of bare soil is a further adaptation measures that is not difficult to implement.

Ø Link sustainable climate adaptation to mitigation and biodiversity

Ø European farmers will have to adapt to a changing climate through measures that must be sustainable and go beyond mere adjustments in current agricultural practices.

Ø To raise awareness and train current and future farmers on sustainable adaptation options at farm level

Ø To promote sustainable adaptation measures among farmers, farmers’ associations, technical consultants, food standard organisations and agricultural assurance companies

Ø To transfer best practices and know-how to political, agricultural and food business stakeholders and contribute to the development and implementation of EU, national and regional policies.

For further information on the project, the project documentation can be found here.

Annex III – Description of CATCH-C project¶

The CATCH-C project (Grant Agreement N° 289782) was carried out within the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration, Theme 2 – Biotechnologies, Agriculture & Food. The EU FP7 CATCH-C project aimed to investigate three major goals of better soil management: productivity, mitigation of climate change, and soil quality, and the potential trade-offs between these three goals. The project wanted to understand how these trade-offs played out in farming systems across Europe regarding their productivity, climate change mitigation and soil quality. The FP7 project was carried out by a consortium of 12 partners, led by Wageningen Research (WR), The Netherlands.

There were several work packages involved in the project, but a major facet of the work involved a farmer survey investigating Best Management practices (BMP) in soil management. This was sent to approx. 10,000 farmers in different farm types across all CATCH-C partner countries, 2520 of whom responded. The BMPs in the farmer survey included management options within the following classes: crop rotation, tillage, nutrient management, crop residue management, water management, and grassland management. In total the survey covered 24 major farm type zones (FTZ), across eight partner countries. An FTZ unit is defined by the combination of an agri-environmental zone (with climate, slope, and soil texture as keys) with a farm type (arable-cereal, arable-specialised, dairy, mixed, etc.) See (Renske Hijbeek, Wolf, and van Ittersum 2013) for further information). This was done to try and identify drivers and barriers that farmers had for either adopting or not adopting BMPs. The surveys were designed and analysed using a behavioural approach based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1988; Ajzen, 1991). The theory and details of the results obtained were extensively reported in Deliverable D4.422 of the CATCH-C project (Bijttebier et al., 2014), further relevant results were published in peer reviewed papers, see (R Hijbeek et al. 2017, 2018, 2019; Vonk et al. 2020). Key results from the CATCH-C project relevant for this report include:

• Design policies not only for soil quality but also for sustainable soil management[1]
• Raise awareness among stakeholders
• Prioritize goals locally
• Target for more ambitious conservation goals
• Increase incentives for technical innovations and lifelong learning
• Invest in scientific base for understanding of soil services

For further information on the project, the project reports can be found here.

[1] because a particular practice to improve an aspect of soil quality may jeopardize other aspects of soil quality, or may conflict with other sustainability goals (e.g., climate mitigation, water quality, bird conservation

Annex IV - List of reviewed Papers¶

Annex V - List of excel categories for organising¶

Annex VI – Statement classes and summaries for barriers and drivers¶

Other statement classes and summaries were also found, however with a more modest frequency than those added directly into the report (i.e., once). These include: More important worries (e.g., economic situation), Land-Use conflicts, Personality traits of Farmer, Farm Size, Successor, farmers’ “belief in individual vulnerability”, Identifying new opportunities.

To note, in the Woods et al. 2017, only the most significant barriers are mentioned here, although a long list of barriers was suggested to farmers, in the most case they remained neutral to them so difficult to know if they were indeed barrier to adaption.

Annex VI – CATCH-C Definitions Tillage and Cover crops¶

Taken from the Catch report of (Bijttebier et al. 2014). Full report can be found: http://www.catch-c.eu/index.php/downloads

Annex VII – The development of the adaptability scale