Spatial impacts of the CAP post-2013 and climate change scenarios on agricultural intensification and environment in Austria

- Integrated assessment of CAP post-2013 and regional climate change scenarios
- Case study analysis of Austrian agriculture and environment for the period 2025-2040
- Policy and climate change scenarios lead to overall agricultural land use intensification.
- Heterogeneous impacts on the environment
- CAP should anticipate spatio-temporal climate change impacts.

We assess impacts of the latest CAP reform and regional climate change scenarios on agricultural land use intensification and environment in Austria for the period 2025-2040. A spatially explicit integrated assessment based on sequentially coupled models quantifies the impacts at a 1 km grid resolution in order to take into account the heterogeneity of agricultural production and environment. The CAP post-2013 will lead to a shift in direct payments from cropland to grassland dominated production regions as well as to a slight decrease in regional producer surpluses in Austria. The economic impact of climate change scenarios depends on the spatial location and the precipitation scenario. The CAP post-2013 will lead to intensification of agricultural land use in favorable cropland and grassland regions as well as to extensification in marginal areas. Regional climate change amplifies land use intensification with increases in crop and forage yields, e.g. in Alpine regions, and land use extensification with declining crop yields, e.g. in eastern cropland regions. Environmental indicators deteriorate at national level in all scenarios. Spatially highly diverging impacts call for more targeted policy measures.