Florian Zabel

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at University of Basel

Increasing demand for agricultural land resources and changing climate conditions require strategic land-use planning and the development of adaptation strategies. Therefore, information about the suitability of agricultural land is a prerequisite. Current suitability approaches often focus on single crops, can only be applied regionally, and usual...

As the world's largest grain producer, China faces substantial challenges from weather and climate extremes, threatening domestic and global food security. Earlier studies focused narrowly on a single crop type, extreme event type, or small region. This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of heatwaves, drought, extreme cold, and extreme...

Increasing demand for agricultural land resources and changing climate conditions require for strategic land-use planning and the development of adaptation strategies. Therefore, information about the suitability of agricultural land is a necessary prerequisite. Current suitability approaches often focus on single crops, can only be applied regiona...

Are there limits to our ability to adapt food systems to climate change? This overview paper for the special issue highlights results of research on potential limits and responses by food system actors. Responses are shaped by the critical interactions among the physical, chemical, biological, and social impacts in food systems arising from climate...

Biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation require understanding of the potential trade-offs from possible future cropland expansion. Here we apply an interdisciplinary coupled modelling approach to identify areas under the globally highest expansion pressure of 1% to 30% future cropland expansion by 2030. On the basis of recent projecti...

Climate change can significantly impact agriculture through various channels. Here, we find that climate change will intensify heat stress, resulting in reduced agricultural labor capacity and higher labor costs in Africa and Asia. To mitigate vulnerability to heat stress, proactive adaptation measures, including the deployment of mechanization, ar...

Crop models are often used to project future crop yield under climate and global change and typically show a broad range of outcomes. To understand differences in modeled responses, we analyzed modeled crop yield response types using impact response surfaces along four drivers of crop yield: carbon dioxide (C), temperature (T), water (W), and nitro...

Producing an adequate food supply to a growing population sustainably is challenging. Despite high-level recommendations for a shift to plant-based diets in most countries, global meat production continues to rise. Yet, we lack a comprehensive geospatial understanding of trade-offs between crops and livestock production efficiency. To address this,...

Climate models provide the required input data for global or regional climate impact analysis in temporally aggregated form, often in daily resolution to save space on data servers. Today, many impact models work with daily data; however, sub-daily climate information is becoming increasingly important for more and more models from different sector...

Climate change is expected to impact crop yields and alter resource availability. However, the understanding of the potential of agricultural land-use adaptation and its costs under climate warming is limited. Here, we use a global land system model to assess land-use-based adaptation and its cost under a set of crop model projections, including CO...

Climate models provide required input data for global or regional climate impact analysis in aggregated form, often on a daily basis to save space on data servers. Today, many impact models work with daily data, however, sub-daily climate information is getting increasingly important for more and more models from different sectors, such as the agri...

Where land-use change and particularly the expansion of cropland could potentially take place in the future is a central research question to investigate emerging trade-offs between food security, climate protection and biodiversity conservation. We provide consistent global datasets of land potentially suitable, cultivable and available for agricu...

Land-use and land-cover changes (LULCCs) contributed around one third to the cumulative, anthropogenic CO 2 emissions from 1850 to 2019. Despite its great importance, estimates of the net CO 2 fluxes from LULCC (E LUC ) have high uncertainties, compared to other components of the global carbon cycle. One major source of uncertainty roots in the und...

The pressure on land resources continuously increases not only with the rising demand for agricultural commodities, but also with the growing need for action on global challenges, such as biodiversity loss or climate change, where land plays a crucial role. Land saving as a strategy, where agricultural productivity is increased to allow a reduction...

Potential climate-related impacts on future crop yield are a major societal concern. Previous projections of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project’s Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 identified substantial climate impacts on all major crops, but associated u...

Modern food production is spatially concentrated in global “breadbaskets”. A major unresolved question is whether these peak production regions will shift poleward as the climate warms, allowing some recovery of potential climaterelated losses. While agricultural impacts studies to date have focused on currently cultivated land, the Global Gridded...

The replacement of fossil resources with renewable biomass in a bioeconomy is seen as a major contribution to climate change mitigation. This transformation will affect all members of society, making it crucial to consider the views of different stakeholders to ensure a socially acceptable transition towards a sustainable bioeconomy. To explore pot...

Changing climate conditions are supposed to have particularly strong impacts on agricultural production in the tropics with strong implications on food security. Ethiopia’s economy is profoundly dominated by agriculture, contributing to around 40% of the gross domestic product. Thereby, Ethiopia is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact...

Climate change affects global agricultural production and threatens food security. Faster phenological development of crops due to climate warming is one of the main drivers for potential future yield reductions. To counter the effect of faster maturity, adapted varieties would require more heat units to regain the previous growing period length. I...

Concerns over climate change are motivated in large part because of their impact on human society. Assessing the effect of that uncertainty on specific potential impacts is demanding, since it requires a systematic survey over both climate and impacts models. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of uncertainty in projected crop yields for maize, s...

Potential climate-related impacts on future crop yield are a major societal concern first surveyed in a harmonized multi-model effort in 2014. We report here on new 21st-century projections using ensembles of latest-generation crop and climate models. Results suggest markedly more pessimistic yield responses for maize, soybean, and rice compared to...

Statistical emulation allows combining advantageous features of statistical and process-based crop models for understanding the effects of future climate changes on crop yields. We describe here the development of emulators for nine process-based crop models and five crops using output from the Global Gridded Model Intercomparison Project (GGCMI) P...

Bioenergy is expected to play a critical role in climate change mitigation. Most IAMs assume an expansion of agricultural land for cultivation of energy crops. This study examines the suitability of land for growing a range of energy crops on areas that are not required for food production, accounting for climate change impacts and conservation req...

Concerns about food security under climate change motivate efforts to better understand future changes in crop yields. Process-based crop models, which represent plant physiological and soil processes, are necessary tools for this purpose since they allow representing future climate and management conditions not sampled in the historical record and...

Significance Impacts of global warming on agricultural productivity have been evaluated extensively. The implications of sudden cooling for global crop growth, however, are as yet little understood. While crop failures after historic volcanic eruptions are documented, a nuclear conflict can cause even more severe and longer-lasting climate anomalie...

Abstract. Statistical emulation allows combining advantageous features of statistical and process-based crop models for understanding the effects of future climate changes on crop yields. We describe here the development of emulators for nine process-based crop models and five crops using output from the Global Gridded Model Intercomparison Project...

Abstract Increasing temperature trends are expected to impact yields of major field crops by affecting various plant processes, such as phenology, growth, and evapotranspiration. However, future projections typically do not consider the effects of agronomic adaptation in farming practices. We use an ensemble of seven Global Gridded Crop Models to q...

Abstract. Concerns about food security under climate change motivate efforts to better understand future changes in crop yields. Process-based crop models, which represent plant physiological and soil processes, are necessary tools for this purpose since they allow representing future climate and management conditions not sampled in the historical...

With rising demand for biomass, cropland expansion and intensification represent the main strategies to boost agricultural production, but are also major drivers of biodiversity decline. We investigate the consequences of attaining equal global production gains by 2030, either by cropland expansion or intensification, and analyse their impacts on a...

Agricultural intensification and cropland expansion are the key policies to increase food production in Ethiopia. Gambella is one of the regions in Ethiopia which is highly suitable for agriculture; however, the local people still face food shortages. We therefore investigated the potential for intensification and cropland expansion. In this study,...

The pace of change in land use and cover in Ethiopia depends on three main factors that cause pressure on agriculture land: resettlement programmes, population growth and increasing agricultural investments. Gambella is one of the regions of Ethiopia that attracts large-scale agricultural investments that extensively drive land use and cover change...

The superior agronomic and human nutritional properties of grain legumes (pulses) make them an ideal foundation for future sustainable agriculture. Legume‐based farming is particularly important in Africa, where small‐scale agricultural systems dominate the food production landscape. Legumes provide an inexpensive source of protein and nutrients to...

Agriculture is the largest global consumer of water. Irrigated areas constitute 40 % of the total area used for agricultural production (FAO, 2014a) Information on their spatial distribution is highly relevant for regional water management and food security. Spatial information on irrigation is highly important for policy and decision makers, who a...

Land-use decisions are made at the local level. They are influenced both by local factors and by global drivers and trends. These will most likely change over time e.g. due to political shocks, market developments or climate change. Hence, their influence should be taken into account when analysing and projecting local land-use decisions. We provid...

Increasing global CO2 emissions have profound consequences for plant biology, not least because of direct influences on carbon gain. However, much remains uncertain regarding how our major crops will respond to a future high CO2 world. Crop models inter-comparison studies have identified large uncertainties and biases associated with climate change...

Potential trade-offs between providing sufficient food for a growing human population in the future and sustaining ecosystems and their services are driven by various biophysical and socio-economic parameters at different scales. In this study, we investigate these trade-offs by using a three-step interdisciplinary approach. We examine (1) how the...

Unfortunately, the Fig. 1 was incorrectly published in the original publication of the article.Fig. 1 Percentage change in global crop production under the land expansion scenario and harvested area in 2030 compared to 2007. Source: simulation of production with DART-BIO; harvested area based on Alexandratos and Bruinsma (2012)The original article...

Agriculture is the largest global consumer of water. Irrigated areas contribute to 40 % of the agricultural production. Information on their spatial distribution is highly relevant for regional water management and food security. Spatial information on irrigation is highly important for policy and decision makers who are facing the transition towar...

Climate change affects all elements of the water balance: precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff. Decreasing annual precipitation by 55 mm and increasing annual evaporation by 47 mm leads to a decrease in annual water availability by 102 mm in the Upper Danube river basin when comparing the periods 2036–2060 with 1971–2000 when choosing the R...

The projected future impact of climate change on low flows in the Upper Danube basin is analysed for a broad range of climate change scenarios based in a stochastic climate generator or on results of regional climate simulations. The analysis was carried out from 2011 to 2060 both for selected gauges and specifically the outlet gauge at Achleiten a...

Regional climate models still lack in an adequate description of the land surface. Here, hydrological land surface models historically developed from small-scale catchment models with higher spatial resolution than regional climate models. Hence, they have a more detailed view on land surface processes. Therefore, a basic idea was to substitute a l...

The projected future impact of climate change on low flows in the Upper Danube basin is analysed for a broad range of climate change scenarios based in a stochastic climate generator or on results of regional climate simulations. The analysis was carried out from 2011 to 2060 both for selected gauges and specifically the outlet gauge at Achleiten a...

Climate change affects all elements of the water balance: precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff. Decreasing annual precipitation by 55 mm and increasing annual evaporation by 47 mm leads to a decrease in annual water availability by 102 mm in the Upper Danube river basin when comparing the periods 2036-2060 with 1971-2000 when choosing the R...

Agriculture is challenged by feeding 9 Billion until 2050, while at the same time it is faced with changing climate conditions. We analysed climate change impacts on agricultural production potentials, in terms of the area suitable for agricultural production, the number of possible harvests per year and potential yield formation on the global scal...

Global biomass demand is expected to roughly double between 2005 and 2050. Current studies suggest that agricultural intensification through optimally managed crops on today’s cropland alone is insufficient to satisfy future demand. In practice though, improving crop growth management through better technology and knowledge almost inevitably goes a...

Supplementary Figures 1-6

Yield, production and crop area used for comparison of FAO-GAEZ and PROMET.

Changing natural conditions determine the land's suitability for agriculture. The growing demand for food, feed, fiber and bioenergy increases pressure on land and causes trade-offs between different uses of land and ecosystem services. Accordingly, an inventory is required on the changing potentially suitable areas for agriculture under changing c...

Recent studies estimate that a growing world population, increasing incomes and changing diets will likely increase the demand for food, feed, fuels and fiber and similarly for water by 70-110% by 2050. There is also general concern that agricultural yields are threatened by climate change, particularly in countries of the Global South. Ensuring fo...

Progress in land surface process modelling has improved both spatial and temporal resolution and process representation. A crucial variable in land surface mass exchange and energy balance is land surface temperature (LST), as it controls latent and sensible heat flux. Aim of this work was to validate diurnal cycles of LST of the MM5-coupled land-s...

Soil parameters represent key data input for crop suitability analysis. Soil databases are complex offering soil mapping units made up of various component soils. In the case of the Harmonized World Soil Database there can be up to 8 component soils per unit. In roughly 1/3 of soil mapping units, the additional component soils take up more than 50%...

Most land surface hydrological models (LSHMs) consider land surface processes (e.g. soil-plant-atmosphere interactions, lateral water flows, snow and ice) in a spatially detailed manner. The atmosphere is considered as exogenous driver, neglecting feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere. On the other hand, regional climate models (RCM...

The challenges of future global food production are characterized by a growing population, changing eating habits and climate change. Ecological intensification of global agriculture can avoid food shortage sustainably and preserve a minimum of nature. The paper describes logic and possible architecture of a global agricultural land management info...

Most land surface hydrological models (LSHMs) take land surface processes (e.g. soil-plant-atmosphere interactions, lateral water flows, snow and ice) into detailed spatial account. On the other hand, they usually consider the atmosphere as exogenous driver only, thereby neglecting feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere. Regional cli...

The assessment of biophysical crop suitability requires datasets on soil and climate. In this study, we investigated the differences in topsoil properties for the dominant soil mapping units between two global soil datasets. We compared the ISRIC World Soil Information Center’s World Inventory of Soil Emissions Potential 5 by 5 arc min Soil Map of...

Downstream models are often used in order to study regional impacts of climate and climate change on the land surface. For this purpose, they are usually driven offline (i.e., 1-way) with results from regional climate models (RCMs). However, the offline approach does not allow for feedbacks between these models. Thereby, the land surface of the dow...

Feedback effects between the land surface and the atmosphere are an important issue in modelling the climate system. Therefore, in order to take land surface heterogeneity adequately into account, a representation of the land surface in sufficient spatial resolution is necessary. In order to analyze the impact of different land surface models on th...

Regionalization of physical land surface models requires the supply of detailed land cover information. Numerous global and regional land cover maps already exist but generally, they do not resolve arable land into different crop types. However, arable land comprises a huge variety of different crops with characteristic phenological behaviour, demo...

Regionalization of physical land surface models requires the supply of detailed land cover information. Numerous global and regional land cover maps already exist but generally, they do not resolve arable land into different crop types. However, arable land comprises a huge variety of different crops with characteristic phenological behaviour, demo...

To investigate the interactions between the atmosphere and the land surface in the context of climate change, an approach was developed that fully couples the regional climate model MM5 with the hydrological model PROMET. Therefore, the down- and upscaling tool SCALMET has been developed to overcome the scale gap between the coarser-resolved atmosp...