During the last decades, the olive farming industry is moving from low-input traditional plantation to intensified traditional plantation and a highly mechanised system. This process led to the first environmental risk caused by intensification: excessive use of water resource.
The aim of OLIVE MIRACLE is to provide accurate tools to test the effectiveness of adaptation/mitigation management strategies to support long-term investment decision making on olive-tree cultivation across the Mediterranean under current and future climate.
The analysis is based on a consistent set of data layers, including weather, soils, and current agro-management information and it is conducted against present and short to mid-term future scenarios of climate change. It uses advanced modelling approaches to integrate available physiological knowledge into existing and well-established modelling platforms, to assess climate change impact and to evaluate mitigation/adaptation strategies by tuning agro-management factors.
Results indicated that climate change will impact olive tree cultivation over the Mediterranean area by potentially reducing suitable areas for cultivation or their productivity in the south while shifting the cultivation in western regions. Appropriate management such as the reduction of evaporative demand through pruning system and the use of drip irrigation may smooth this trend, mainly caused by a reduction of yearly rainfall.
In most cases, the productivity of irrigated olive orchards was forecasted to increase under climate change scenarios due to the higher water use efficiency induced by the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
*At the time of the proposal. Please consider this data as an accurate estimate; it may vary during the project’s lifespan.
Total costs include in kind contribution by grant holders and can therefore be higher than the total requested funding.