Edited by Pavol Nejedlik and Simone Orlandini "Survey of agrometeorological practices and applications in Europe regarding climate changes impacts"

During 2006, COST Action 734 (CLIVAGRI-Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on European Agriculture) was launched thanks to the coordinated activity of 15 EU countries. The main objective of the Action is the evaluation of possible impacts from climate change and variability on agriculture and the assessment of critical thresholds for various European areas (COST 734 MoU. Secondary objectives are: the collection and review of existing agroclimatic indices and simulation models, to assess hazard impacts on various European agricultural areas relating hazards to climatic conditions; building climate scenarios for the next few decades; the definition of harmonised criteria to evaluate the impacts of climate change and variability on agriculture; the definition of warning systems guidelines. Four working groups, with the integration of Remote Sensing sub working
group, were created to address these aims:
WG1 – Agroclimatic indices and simulation models
WG2 – Evaluation of the current trends of agroclimatic indices and simulation model outputs describing agricultural impacts and hazard levels
WG3 – Development and assessment of future regional and local scenarios of agroclimatic conditions
WG4 – Risk assessment and foreseen impacts on agriculture

The activity of WGs has been structured like a matrix, presenting on the rows the methods of analysis and on the columns the phenomena and the hazards. Each intersection point describes the evaluation of past, present and future trends of climate and thus the impacts on agriculture. Based on these results, possible actions (specific recommendations, suggestions, warning systems) will be elaborated and proposed to the end-users, depending on their needs. At present 28 countries join the Action with the collaboration of Agricultural Meteorology Division - Word Meteorology Organization and Ispra- IPSCAGRIFISH UNIT - Joint Research Centre.

Time schedule of activity includes three main phases:

• Planning, operational arrangements, establishment of WGs and inventory.

• Main scientific work to be conducted by each WG.

• WGs activities to be concluded with emphasis on disseminations, reports and final publications.

In this book the results of inventory phase are presented. For this aim, five questionnaires (titled: Agroclimatic Indices and Models; Trends in Agroclimatic Indices and Model Outputs; Satellite Data Records Survey; Climate Change Scenarios; Risk Assessment and Foreseen Impacts on Agriculture) were disseminated among COST 734 countries and about 20 answers for each questionnaire were collected.

This book has to be considered as a general description of the activity performed in Europe in the field of climate change and variability impacts on agriculture. It has to be pointed out that the results of questionnaire analysis are not representative of the whole Europe, but they are limited by the quantity of answering COST countries and by the quality of the answers. However the wide range of presented information, including data, models, indices, methods, tools, can represent an useful support for the workers of agricultural sectors (farmers, technicians, decision makers, etc.) to better plan the analysis and the

adaptation of European agriculture to climate change and variability impacts.