Climate change impacts on European crop yields: Do we need to consider nitrogen limitation?

•Water limited and nitrogen–water limited yields were simulated across Europe.•For spring crops, production conditions had no effect on relative yield change.•For winter crops, nitrogen–water limited conditions gave more negative yield changes.•Specification of future nitrogen fertilization is a challenge.

Global climate impact studies with crop models suggest that including nitrogen and water limitation causes greater negative climate change impacts on actual yields compared to water-limitation only. We simulated water limited and nitrogen–water limited yields across the EU-27 to 2050 for six key crops with the SIMPLACE model to assess how important consideration of nitrogen limitation is in climate impact studies for European cropping systems. We further investigated how crop nitrogen use may change under future climate change scenarios. Our results suggest that inclusion of nitrogen limitation hardly changed crop yield response to climate for the spring-sown crops considered (grain maize, potato, and sugar beet). However, for winter-sown crops (winter barley, winter rapeseed and winter wheat), simulated impacts to 2050 were more negative when nitrogen limitation was considered, especially with high levels of water stress. Future nitrogen use rates are likely to decrease due to climate change for spring-sown crops, largely in parallel with their yields. These results imply that climate change impact studies for winter-sown crops should consider N-fertilization. Specification of future N fertilization rates is a methodological challenge that is likely to need integrated assessment models to address.