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Climate change and globalization affect the suitable conditions for agricultural crops and insect pests, threatening future food security. It remains unknown whether shifts in species' climatic suitability will be linear or rather non-linear, with crop exposure to pests suddenly increasing when a critical temperature threshold is crossed. Moreover, uncertainty of forecasts can arise because of the modelling approach based either on species distribution data or on physiological measurements. Here, we compared the predictions of two modelling approaches (physiological models and species distribution models) for forecasting the potential distribution of agricultural insect pests in Europe. Despite conceptual differences, we found good agreement overall between the two approaches. We further identified a potential regime change in pest pressure along a temperature gradient. With both modelling approaches, we found an inflection point in the number of pest species with suitable climatic conditions around a minimum temperature of the coldest month of -3°C. Our results could help decision-makers anticipate the onset of rising pest pressure and provide support for intensifying surveillance measures, particularly in regions where temperatures are already beyond the inflection point., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Global changes pose both risks and opportunities to agriculture and forestry, and biological forecasts can inform future management strategies. Here, we investigate potential land-use opportunities arising from climate change for these sectors in Europe, and risks associated with the introduction and establishment of novel insect pests. Adopting a metaweb approach including all interaction links between 126 crops and forest tree species and 89 black-listed insect pest species, we show that the metawebs shift toward increased numbers of links and overlap of suitable area under climate change. Decomposing the metaweb across regions shows large saturation in southern Europe, while many novel interactions are expected for northern Europe. In light of the rising consumer awareness about human health and environmental impacts of food and wood production, the challenge will be to effectively exploit new opportunities to create diverse local agriculture and forestry while controlling pest species and reducing risks from pesticide use.

Global warming will lead to earlier beginnings and prolongation of growing seasons in temperate regions and will have pronounced effects on phenology and life-history adaptation in many species. These changes were not easy to simulate for actual phenologies because of the rudimentary temporal (season) and spatial (regional) resolution of climate model projections. We investigate the effect of climate change on the regional incidence of a pest insect with nearly worldwide distribution and very high potential for adaptation to season length and temperature--the Codling Moth, Cydia pomonella. Seasonal and regional climate change signals were downscaled to the hourly temporal scale of a pest phenology model and the spatial scale of pest habitats using a stochastic weather generator operating at daily scale in combination with a re-sampling approach for simulation of hourly weather data. Under future conditions of increased temperatures (2045-2074), the present risk of below 20% for a pronounced second generation (peak larval emergence) in Switzerland will increase to 70-100%. The risk of an additional third generation will increase from presently 0-2% to 100%. We identified a significant two-week shift to earlier dates in phenological stages, such as overwintering adult flight. The relative extent (magnitude) of first generation pupae and all later stages will significantly increase. The presence of first generation pupae and later stages will be prolonged. A significant decrease in the length of overlap of first and second generation larval emergence was identified. Such shifts in phenology may induce changes in life-history traits regulating the life cycle. An accordingly life-history adaptation in photoperiodic diapause induction to shorter day-length is expected and would thereby even more increase the risk of an additional generation. With respect to Codling Moth management, the shifts in phenology and voltinism projected here will require adaptations of plant protection strategies to maintain their sustainability.

In this study, we investigated the consequences of climate change on bioclimatic indices in vineyards along the edge of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland. Like in other vineyards all around the world, the typicity of wines and the phenology of vines have changed, particularly since the 1970s. Trends in the growing season average temperature and in Huglin's heliothermal index show that the climate in the Neuchatel vineyards changed from very cool or cool to temperate during the last decades. Trends in the cool night index and in the prior to harvest cool night index both indicate that in the near future this wine region will frequently experience temperate instead of cool nights during the weeks leading up to harvest. Our results highlight the need for adaptation strategies, such as an upward elevational shift for Pinot Noir, as climatic conditions will become too warm at its current location in the next decades. They also show that conditions in this region are already favorable for more thermophilic varieties such as Merlot. In the context of global warming, this kind of analysis should be conducted throughout winegrowing regions in order to develop efficient adaptation strategies at the microclimatic scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As significant impacts of climate change are increasingly considered unavoidable, adaptation has become a policy priority. It is generally agreed that science is important for the adaptation process but specific guidance on how and to what degree science should contribute and be embedded in this process is still limited which is at odds with the high demand for science contributions to climate adaptation by international organizations, national governments and others. Here we present and analyze experiences from the tropical Andes based on a recent science-policy process on the national and supra-national government level. During this process a framework for the science contribution in climate adaptation has been developed; it consists of three stages, including (1) the framing and problem definition, (2) the scientific assessment of climate, impacts, vulnerabilities and risks, and (3) the evaluation of adaptation options and their implementation. A large amount of methods has been analyzed for stage (2), and a number of major climate adaptation projects in the region assessed for (3). Our study underlines the importance of joint problem framing among various scientific and non-scientific actors, definition of socio-environmental systems, time frames, and a more intense interaction of social and physical climate and impact sciences. Scientifically, the scarcity of environmental, social and economic data in regions like the Andes continue to represent a limitation to adaptation, and further investments into coordinated socio-environmental monitoring, data availability and sharing are essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Besides its primary role in producing food and fiber, agriculture also has relevant effects on several other functions, such as management of renewable natural resources. Climate change (CC) may lead to new trade-offs between agricultural functions or aggravate existing ones, but suitable agricultural management may maintain or even improve the ability of agroecosystems to supply these functions. Hence, it is necessary to identify relevant drivers (e.g., cropping practices, local conditions) and their interactions, and how they affect agricultural functions in a changing climate. The goal of this study was to use a modeling framework to analyze the sensitivity of indicators of three important agricultural functions, namely crop yield (food and fiber production function), soil erosion (soil conservation function), and nutrient leaching (clean water provision function), to a wide range of agricultural practices for current and future climate conditions. In a two-step approach, cropping practices that explain high proportions of variance of the different indicators were first identified by an analysis of variance-based sensitivity analysis. Then, most suitable combinations of practices to achieve best performance with respect to each indicator were extracted, and trade-offs were analyzed. The procedure was applied to a region in western Switzerland, considering two different soil types to test the importance of local environmental constraints. Results show that the sensitivity of crop yield and soil erosion due to management is high, while nutrient leaching mostly depends on soil type. We found that the influence of most agricultural practices does not change significantly with CC; only irrigation becomes more relevant as a consequence of decreasing summer rainfall. Trade-offs were identified when focusing on best performances of each indicator separately, and these were amplified under CC. For adaptation to CC in the selected study region, conservation soil management and the use of cropped grasslands appear to be the most suitable options to avoid trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In several regions of the world, climate change is expected to have severe impacts on agricultural systems. Changes in land management are one way to adapt to future climatic conditions, including land-use changes and local adjustments of agricultural practices. In previous studies, options for adaptation have mostly been explored by testing alternative scenarios. Systematic explorations of land management possibilities using optimization approaches were so far mainly restricted to studies of land and resource management under constant climatic conditions. In this study, we bridge this gap and exploit the benefits of multi-objective regional optimization for identifying optimum land management adaptations to climate change. We design a multi-objective optimization routine that integrates a generic crop model and considers two climate scenarios for 2050 in a meso-scale catchment on the Swiss Central Plateau with already limited water resources. The results indicate that adaptation will be necessary in the study area to cope with a decrease in productivity by 0–10 %, an increase in soil loss by 25–35 %, and an increase in N-leaching by 30–45 %. Adaptation options identified here exhibit conflicts between productivity and environmental goals, but compromises are possible. Necessary management changes include (i) adjustments of crop shares, i.e. increasing the proportion of early harvested winter cereals at the expense of irrigated spring crops, (ii) widespread use of reduced tillage, (iii) allocation of irrigated areas to soils with low water-retention capacity at lower elevations, and (iv) conversion of some pre-alpine grasslands to croplands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Process-based crop models are widely used in decision support systems or to assess impacts of climate change on agriculture at different spatial scales. They include crop and/or cultivar-specific parameters that need to be calibrated. However, the availability of reference data is often limited. An alternative is to use yield records from widely available Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The goal of this study was therefore to propose and test a crop model calibration procedure that makes use of FADN data. To account for the lack of management information in the FADN databases, the concept of ‘Meteorologically Possible Yield’ (MPY) was adopted. This concept is particularly relevant in the context of climate impact studies as MPYs are by definition only driven by climate variability. As an example, the procedure was applied to calibrate the generic crop model CropSyst for a region located in north-eastern Switzerland. Validation using data from a long-term field trial with detailed information on fertilizer applications showed that the proposed procedure provides robust simulation results and is therefore suitable for climate impact studies in regions where detailed experimental data are scarce. In a case study application, the transferability of the local calibration to a site with drier conditions was tested and simulation results for this new site were compared to results obtained using local recalibration. Results showed that predicted yields can differ substantially and the differences can be strongly amplified when impacts of climate change are considered. This highlights the need for adjusting model calibrations to local site conditions and for considering parameter uncertainties in climate impact studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we assess climate change impacts on an intensively managed grassland system at the Swiss Plateau using the process-based grassland model PROGRASS. Taking the CO fertilization into account, we find increasing yield levels (in the range of 10-24%) and sharp increases in production risks for an illustrative climate change scenario that suggests a marked increase in temperature and decrease in summer rainfall. Climate change-induced increases in the coefficients of variation of grassland yields are in the range of 21 and 50%. This finding underpins that additional risk management strategies are needed to cope with climate-change impacts on grassland production. The outputs from the grassland model are evaluated economically using certainty equivalents, i.e., accounting for mean quasi rents and production risks. To identify potential risk management strategies under current and future climatic conditions, we consider adjustments of production intensity and farm-level yield insurance. The impact of climate change on production intensities is found to be ambiguous: farmers' will increase intensity under unconstrained production conditions, but will decrease production intensity in the presence of a cross-compliance scheme. Our results also show that the considered insurance scheme is a powerful tool to manage climate risks in grassland production under current and future conditions because it can reduce the coefficients of variation of quasi rents by up to 50%. However, we find that direct payments tend to reduce farmers' incentives to use such insurance scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mechanisms controlling transient responses to elevated CO2 concentration and climate change in an unfertilized grassland on the Swiss Plateau were examined in light of simulations with PROGRASS, a process-based model of grass-clover interactions. Daily weather for a series of transient climate scenarios spanning the 21st century were developed for the study site with the help of the LARS-WG weather generator. Changes in the length of dry and wet spells, temperature, precipitation and solar radiation defining the scenarios were obtained from regional climate simulations carried out in the framework of the PRUDENCE project. Compared to 1961-1990, the latter indicated that for 2071-2100 there would be a noticeable increase in temperature (roughly 3°C in winter and 5°C in summer), a significant drop in summer precipitation (of the order of -30%) and a nearly 2-told increase in the length of dry spells. Assuming that clover is less drought-tolerant than grass, we examined whether clover abundance would decrease as a consequence of increasing heat and water stress, or be promoted on account of CO2 stimulation. Results indicated that: (1) at our site, climate change alone did not curtail biological N2 fixation to the point as to alter the composition of the sward but nevertheless entailed a decrease in grassland productivity; (2) increasing CO2 clearly promoted clover growth (via feedbacks on nitrogen acquisition) and grassland productivity; and (3) even with CO2 stimulation, the additional N input from symbiotic N2 fixation was not sufficient to substantially improve the mineral N status of the system and promote grass competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate plays a fundamental role in agriculture because of to its influence on production. All processes are regulated by specific climatic requirements. Furthermore, European agriculture, based on highly developed farming techniques, is mainly oriented to high quality food production that is more susceptible to meteorological hazards. These hazards can modify environment–genotype interactions, which can affect the quality of production. The COST 734 Action (Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on European Agriculture), launched in 2006, is composed of 28 signature countries and is funded by the European Commission. The main objective of the Action is the evaluation of possible impacts arising from climate change and variability on agriculture and the assessment of critical thresholds for various European areas. The Action will concentrate on four different tasks: agroclimatic indices and simulation models, including review and assessment of tools used to relate climate and agricultural processes; evaluation of the current trends of agroclimatic indices and model outputs, including remote sensing; developing and assessing future regional and local scenarios of agroclimatic conditions; and risk assessment and foreseen impacts on agriculture. The work will be carried out by respective Working Groups. This paper presents the results of the analysis of the first phase of inventory activity. Specific questionnaires were disseminated among COST 734 countries to collect information on climate change analysis, studies, and impact at the European level. The results were discussed with respect to their spatial distribution in Europe and to identify possible common long- and short-term strategies for adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There are clear indications that in the future the Alpine region will increasingly suffer from droughts. In this paper, a simple method is devised for determining probability of drought occurrence and exceedance of severity thresholds. A reconstruction of drought occurrence during the past 100 yr indicates that the method is able to detect major events and also to correctly gauge their relative severity. The procedure is used in conjunction with climate simulations for the European region valid for 2071–2100 to study the impact of climate change on the likelihood and severity of droughts. The climate scenario used for the analysis refers to a SRES A2 emission pathway and specifies in particular a decrease in the frequency of wet days of about 20% with respect to the growing season of summer crops (April to September). Under these conditions the frequency of droughts is shown to increase from about 15% to more than 50%. In addition, the results indicate an overall shift in the distribution toward higher severity scores. The average severity increases by a factor of two, but also at the upper end of the spectrum severity increases by more than 20%. It is argued that this will affect the perception of extreme droughts, i.e. of those events rarer than the 10th percentile of the distribution. If this scenario comes true, by the end of the 21st century droughts comparable in severity to the 2003 event would represent the norm rather than the exception. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Changes of the summer evapotranspiration regime under increased levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are discussed for three Alpine river basins on the basis of a new set of simulations carried out with a high-resolution hydrological model. The climate change signal was inferred from the output of two simulations with a state-of-the-art global climate model (GCM), a reference run valid for 1961--1990 and a time-slice simulation valid for 2071--2100 under forcing from the A2 IPCC emission scenario. In this particular GCM experiment and with respect to the Alpine region summer temperature was found to increase by 3 to 4.C, whereas precipitation was found to decrease by 10 to 20%. Global radiation and water vapor pressure deficit were found to increase by about 5% and 2 hPa, respectively. On this background, an overall increase of potential evapotranspiration of about 20% relative to the baseline was predicted by the hydrological model, with important variations between but also within individual basins. The results of the hydrological simulations also revealed a reduction in the evapotranspiration efficiency that depends on altitude. Accordingly, actual evapotranspiration was found to increase at high altitudes and to the south of the Alps, but to decrease in low elevation areas of the northern forelands and in the inner-Alpine domain. Such a differentiation does not appear in the GCM scenario, which predicts an overall increase in evapotranspiration over the Alps. This underlines the importance of detailed simulations for the quantitative assessment of the regional impact of climate change on the hydrological cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Climate change is expected to have a profound influence on soil moisture. According to that the present study aimed at the investigation of future soil water evolution by considering the relationship between soil moisture changes resulting from climate change projections, soil, and terrain characteristics, with special emphasis on slope and groundwater depth. The distributed hydrological model WaSiM-ETH was used to simulate root zone soil water content at a 1km grid resolution in the 1700km2 Thur river basin (NE Switzerland) during the 6-month period from April to September. The model was driven by baseline climate data from national data records for 1981–2000, or by scenario data for 2081–2100. The latter were based on grid point projections of two global climate models (CSIRO [B2] and HadCM3 [A2]). The datasets were completed with observations and simulations for the exceptionally warm and dry summer of 2003. The results suggested that a warmer climate with less summertime precipitation may significantly lower the seasonal mean soil water content in many parts of this basin, leading to frequent water stress conditions. Strongest effects occurred with HadCM3, and to a similar extent with 2003 weather data. The magnitude of soil moisture changes were related to land use, soil texture, and slope. In relative terms, reductions in soil water were largest for sloping soils with low water storage capacity, and also larger for forests than for cropland and grasslands. In absolute (volumetric) units, most pronounced reductions were indicated for flat areas with good water supply (mostly dominated by cropland). Here, the rooting zone was often connected to the groundwater, and capillary rise counteracted soil water depletion under current climate during the first half of the season, but was disconnected much earlier under climate change conditions. In steeper areas, groundwater had no influence and thus soil water content changed mainly in response to decreased precipitation and increased evapotranspiration. It is concluded that soil water contents generally decline in this pre-alpine river basin with climate change, but that the degree of soil water depletion varies with climate scenario, land use, soil texture, and topographic conditions. Thus, realistic soil water projections require reliable predictions of summertime climate, and the use of a full representation of biophysical processes that control evapotranspiration, including vertical and lateral subsurface water flows. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The reduction of N fertilization in agriculture as part of the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy plays a central role in the integrated nutrient management action plan of the European Commission. However, the implications of this strategy for mitigating N losses and possible side-effects on grassland yields under global change are largely unknow. We examined how a 20% reduction in N fertilization according to the F2F strategy is likely to impact yields, N 2 O emissions and N leaching of four intensively managed temperate grasslands in the Alpine region, two of them located in Switzerland, the other two in Germany. Following automatic data-driven calibration supported by inverse modeling and a cross-validation step, the process-based model DayCent was used for conducting the analysis. Global change scenarios under the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 and a baseline scenario (current climate) were created for the time frame 2041–2060 with the help of the stochastic weather generator LARS-WG. Our results indicated that, under current conditions of climate and CO 2 levels (400 ppm), a 20% decrease in N fertilization would lead to a 5% drop in yields, but also in a 15% decline in N 2 O emissions and a 21% decline in N leaching (largely as NO 3 −). Under global change conditions (i.e. , climate change and higher atmospheric CO 2 levels), we found that increased yields, mainly induced by higher CO 2 levels, are likely to compensate for yield losses resulting from the reduction in N fertilization. In addition, we found that the effectiveness of the F2F strategy to mitigate N losses is likely to be preserved under global change, still with stronger effect on N leaching. The F2F-induced decline in N losses was stronger when the latter were expressed per unit of harvested dry matter, i.e. , up to 17% for N 2 O and up to 42% for N leaching. Although significant, these abatements in N losses are still below the 50% reduction level envisaged by the F2F strategy. Actions related to other axes of the strategy (e.g. , sustainable food consumption) will be necessary to further reduce N fertilization and, therefore, to reach this ambitious goal. Our results highlight the usefulness of models in accounting for interacting effects of global change and mitigation practices on multiple ecosystem services of grasslands. They allow quantification of the impact of new policies. [Display omitted] • Reducing N fertilization and losses plays a central role in the EU's Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy. • Possible side effects on yields of Alpine grasslands were quantified using a mechanistic model. • Yield losses due to reduced N fertilization are offset by positive effects of rising CO 2 levels. • Yield-scaled N losses as N 2 O and leaching tend to decrease in future scenarios with global change and the F2F strategy. • The impact of integrating all aspects of the F2F strategy should be further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In order to analyze impacts of climate change on managed grassland systems and to project potential changes in farmers’ management practices in response to altered climatic conditions, we develop a modeling approach that integrates a process-based grassland model into an economic model. This economic model describes farmers’ decision making with respect to input use and accounts for production levels, production risks, fodder quality as determined by the grassland composition, and environmental protection. We apply the bio-economic model to an intensively managed grassland system with a geographic focus on the Swiss Plateau. Our results show an increase of future production risks in grassland production due to climate change. Projected changes in yield levels, grassland composition and optimal responses of risk-averse farmers are dependent on the assumptions concerning cross-compliance obligations, forage quality and particularly on the assumed effect of elevated CO2 concentrations: Grasslands yields will increase under future climatic conditions only if the benefits of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are taken into account. Without this potential benefit, climate change will lead to less intensive input use and lower grassland yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Earlier onset of pre-alpine cut grassland growing season entails shifts to earlier cutting dates and more cuts per year. • Dynamic simulation of cutting dates can tackle these shifts if temperature and soil moisture are considered. • Climate change increase pre-alpine grassland yields only if growth is not limited by soil moisture and nitrogen. The productivity of permanent temperate cut grasslands is mainly driven by weather, soil characteristics, botanical composition and management. To adapt management to climate change, adjusting the cutting dates to reflect earlier onset of growth and expansion of the vegetation period is particularly important. Simulations of cut grassland productivity under climate change scenarios demands management settings to be dynamically derived from actual plant development rather than using static values derived from current management operations. This is even more important in the alpine region, where the predicted temperature increase is twice as high as compared to the global or Northern Hemispheric average. For this purpose, we developed a dynamic management module that provides timing of cutting and manuring events when running the biogeochemical model LandscapeDNDC. We derived the dynamic management rules from long-term harvest measurements and monitoring data collected at pre-alpine grassland sites located in S-Germany and belonging to the TERENO monitoring network. We applied the management module for simulations of two grassland sites covering the period 2011–2100 and driven by scenarios that reflect the two representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 and evaluated yield developments of different management regimes. The management module was able to represent timing of current management operations in high agreement with several years of field observations (r² > 0.88). Even more, the shift of the first cutting dates scaled to a +1 °C temperature increase simulated with the climate change scenarios (−9.1 to −17.1 days) compared well to the shift recorded by the German Weather Service (DWD) in the study area from 1991−2016 (−9.4 to −14.0 days). In total, the shift in cutting dates and expansion of the growing season resulted in 1−2 additional cuts per year until 2100. Thereby, climate change increased yields of up to 6 % and 15 % in the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios with highest increases mainly found for dynamically adapted grassland management going along with increasing fertilization rates. In contrast, no or only minor yield increases were associated with simulations restricted to fertilization rates of 170 kg N ha−1 yr−1 as required by national legislations. Our study also shows that yields significantly decreased in drought years, when soil moisture is limiting plant growth but due to comparable high precipitation and water holding capacity of soils, this was observed mainly in the RCP 8.5 scenario in the last decades of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Climate change will alter the environmental conditions for crop growth and require adjustments in management practices at the field scale. In this paper, we analyzed the impacts of two different climate change scenarios on optimal field management practices in winterwheat and grain maize production with case studies from Switzerland. Management options included nitrogen fertilization (amount, timing and allocation) as well as irrigation. Optimal solutions that maximize the farmer’s utility were sought with the help of a bioeconomic modeling system that integrated the process-based crop growth model CropSyst into an economic decision model. The latter accounted not only for the crop specific average profit margins, but also for production risks, reflecting the utility (expressed as the certainty equivalent) of a risk-averse farmer’s management decisions at field scale. In view of the non-linearity and complexity of the problem, we used a genetic algorithm as optimization technique. For grain maize, our results showed that climate change will foster the use of irrigation, not only at sites prone to water limitation already under current climatic conditions, but more in general for climate change scenarios projecting a substantial decrease in summer precipitation. For winterwheat, irrigation was never identified as an optimal management option. For both crops and sites, climate change reduced the optimum nitrogen fertilization amount and decreased for winterwheat the number of fertilization applications. In all cases, the farmer’s certainty equivalent decreased between 7% and 25% under climate change, implying negative impacts on winterwheat and grain maize production even under the assumption of an adjustment of the optimum management practices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Pre-alpine grasslands provide important economic value via fodder used for milk and meat production. Grassland soils also support environmental key functions such as carbon and nitrogen storage, water retention, erosion control and biodiversity. At present, these functions are jeopardized by climate change, which is likely to be accelerated in coming decades. Beside climate change, management decisions (most important cutting and manuring frequency/amount) have a high impact on grassland yields and soil C and N dynamics. In pre-alpine regions climate change is increasing the length of the growing season mainly due to an earlier start in spring (Chang et al. 2017). Together with later autumn senescence, higher temperatures, higher CO2 concentrations and changed soil water and nutrient availability this can lead to significant changes in biomass development throughout the year. Under real field conditions, the farmer cuts the grass on demand and influenced by biomass development as well as climate and soil conditions. With an earlier start of the growing season farmers likely do the first cut earlier, which will also influence timing of further cutting and manuring events throughout the year. Similarly, drought will likely cause a delay in cutting. Thus, instead of using fixed management dates (for cutting and manuring) derived from current climate conditions, within long term climate change scenarios (e.g. RCP4.5, RCP 8.5), it is necessary to dynamically fit the timing of management practices depending on plant development as affected by predicted climate conditions.A new management module for the process-based biogeochemical model LandscapeDNDC (Kraus et al., 2014; Haas et al., 2013; Kiese et al., 2011), was designed and implemented which fulfills this topic by imitating an intensive managing farmer. Depending on simulated aboveground biomass development and detailed rule-sets, timing of grassland management (cutting and manuring) are set dynamically over the time of climate change scenario studies.The new management module was applied on two different pre-alpine grassland sites for which comprehensive data on management and yields were available. At first, the module was calibrated and successfully validated for the time period of measurements; i.e. 2012-2016. It was then applied on 90 years of climate change scenario simulations with the representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 and comparing grassland C and N dynamics with a scenario run based on static management i.e. fixed dates.Results show that climate change affects grassland growth of especially during the start of the growing season with significant earlier first cutting dates particularly for RCP 8.5. Overall, the carbon and nitrogen stocks decrease with climate change highlighting a risk on soil fertility and thus productivity of montane grassland soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]