Developing Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Metrics for Agriculture

The purpose of this report is to explore useful metrics needed for estimating the short-term (20-30 years) and long-term (80-100 years) impacts of climate change on agriculture, both in monetary and non-monetary terms, helping decision–makers evaluate, at regional to national levels, which adaptation strategies and policy options potentially minimize risk and maximize benefits under changed climate regimes. Metrics can help stakeholders and policy-makers assess levels of risk and vulnerability of agricultural systems, by helping to quantify thresholds beyond which substantial changes in management practices and concerted action for planned adaptation strategies is necessary. The Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II states that climate change impacts on agriculture will have local, regional, and global dimensions (IPCC, 2001). Responses at all scales will depend on the capacity of agricultural systems to adapt to changed conditions as a function not only of climate, but also of socioeconomic conditions, technological progress and agricultural markets. It is therefore helpful to develop, together with agricultural stakeholders and decision-makers, a set of metrics for use in the analysis of the timing and magnitude of such impacts, and in the evaluation of adaptation actions. A cohesive set of metrics for climate change and agriculture would facilitate effective planning and implementation of response strategies at relevant scales and elucidate connections among biophysical and socioeconomic systems. Such an effort contributes to the more robust estimation of the benefits of climate change policies relating to agriculture. A set of " metrics, " or indexes, can be defined as a system of measurement that includes the item being measured, the unit of measurement, and the value of the unit. Metrics may provide a tool for developing and implementing response strategies, measuring progress, and improving performance. Three main principles underlie development and choice of metrics: (1) Criteria for selection; (2) Action plan for metric creation; and (3) Strategies for use as tools to drive system progress. 4 Following these principles, we provide herein some proposed guidelines on how to identify and develop a set of Climate Change and Agriculture Metrics, in order to associate the magnitude and timing of climate change—temperature and precipitation regimes, necessary to project agricultural risks—with measures of impacts on agriculture, at regional to national scales, with the aim of helping decision-makers to devise adaptation strategies. Specifically, metrics should highlight potential physical, agro-ecological and socioeconomic risks, taking into consideration adaptation within national …