Researchprojects

BAB 032/19: APCC Special Report Land Use, Land Management and Climate Change

Initial situation

Land use is very closely linked to climate. On a global scale, land use is a key driver of climate change, but at the same time is strongly influenced by changes in climate conditions. Global land use is particularly associated with unprecedented sustainability challenges, such as the maintenance of food security, the loss of biodiversity or the deteriorating state of ecosystems. On the other hand, ecosystems have relevant means for climate protection, e.g. through the ability of plants to sequester and store large amounts of CO2. The 1.5 degrees report of the IPCC (2018) argues that the development and implementation of such land-based climate change mitigation strategies will be crucial for the future of socio-economic developments. Also in Austria, rural ecosystems are already strongly influenced by climate change, e.g. through higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and more frequent extreme events.

Objective

The APCC Special Report on Land Use, Land Management and Climate Change will systematically review, summarise and assess the current state of knowledge. An open process will be developed and followed, allowing the entire Austrian community of researchers and experts in the field of land system research to actively contribute to it.
Austrian agriculture and forestry are particularly affected by the impacts of climate change. For both sectors, different effects on productivity are known, which make self-sufficient food production increasingly difficult. One challenge is to develop adaptation strategies that do not impede climate protection or even lead to higher emissions. The Special Report will present the impacts of climate change in Austria on land use - and vice versa. Furthermore, the future role of land use for climate change adaptation and mitigation will be presented and mapped with relevant socio-economic and ecological contexts.  

Planned procedure, implementation

The process of the project is based on already established procedures of the IPCC, as well as the APCC. There are four main steps, which are organised according to the development of the drafts (from the zero-order draft to the final draft) and review processes. The main milestones in this process are author workshops, which are accompanied by stakeholder workshops.

Status of the project

At the beginning of 2020, a first stakeholder workshop took place where the zero-order draft produced in 2019 could be commented on. Based on these comments and online reviews, a first-order draft was created by the authors. This was again open for comments online, as well as within another stakeholder workshop.

Work 2021

In a next step, the stakeholders' comments on the first-order draft will be incorporated and a second-order draft will be prepared. This will be followed by a final stakeholder workshop and the preparation of the final report including the Summary for Policy Makers. Between these steps, there will be several author workshops for coordination.

Timetable

Project start: September 2019
Project end: December 2021

This text has been automatically translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator.

Wheat field

Wheat field

BABF, Hager, 2013

Project Status

finished

Project Leader

GRUENEIS, Heidelinde

DI.in Dr.in Heidelinde GRUENEIS

Mountain Areas Research and Regional Development
Dietrichgasse 27
1030 Wien
 +43 (1) 71100 - 637415

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