COST ACTION

1. COST ACTION European COoperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research 734 CLIVAGRI Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on European Agriculture www.cost734.eu

2. Status of the action The Action started on November 17, 2006 and will finish on November 16, 2010. Number of Signatories 23 countries have signed the MoU, one country /Luxembourg/ has expressed officially the wish to sign.

3. Signatories: list of countries and date of signature • Austria 03/11/2006 • Bulgaria 16/08/2006 • Croatia 13/03/2007 • Cyprus 03/10/2006 • Czech Republic 21/11/2006 • Denmark 11/05/2006 • Finland 12/07/2006 • France 29/11/2006 • Germany 18/05/2006 • Greece 19/12/2006 • Hungary 07/07/2006 • Ireland 11/05/2006 Italy 17/05/2006 Netherlands 23/05/2006 Norway 10/05/2006 Poland 11/05/2006 Romania 25/07/2006 Serbia 03/11/2006 Slovakia 16/02/2007 Slovenia 28/09/2006 Spain 19/09/2006 Switzerland 15/05/2006 United Kingdom 11/05/2006 Luxembourg 02/05/2007 Intention

4. AIMS 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. More specifically, the proposed COST Action will be structured to achieve the following objectives: • The collection and review of existing agroclimatic indices and simulation models for assessing 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 for evaluating the impacts of climatic change and variability on agriculture • The definition of warning system guidelines

5. PHASES Phase A - Planning, operational arrangements, establishment of WGs and inventory (First part of 1st Year) Phase B - Main scientific work to be conducted by each WG (End of 1st Year to end of 3rd Year) Phase C - WGs activities to be concluded with emphasis on disseminations, reports and final publications (4th Year)

6. Phase A: Inventory (1st year, 9 months)

7. Chairperson Simone Orlandini Vice Chairperson Pavol Nejedlik DC Rapporteur Professor Giampiero Maracchi Science Officer Paola De Rose Next: Carine Petit Administrative Officer Burcu Dagurkuden COST members

8. Agroclimatic Indices and Models Group Leader: Josef Eitzinger Working Group 1 Trends in Agroclimatic Indices and Model Outputs Leader: Vesselin Alexandrov co-Leader: Elena Mateescu Working Group 2 Remote Sensing Subgroup Group Leader: Leonidas Toulios Working Group 3 Climate change scenarios Group Leader: Lucka Kajfez Bogataj Risk Assessment and Foreseen Impacts on Agriculture Group Leader: Jorgen Edvind Olesen co-Leader: Miroslav Trnka Working Group 4

9. External contacts: WMO Strong scientific cooperation was defined with the Agricultural MeteorologyDivision of the World Meteorological Organization. Joint activities will be planned, as well as the possible organisation of common meetings and conferences together with the relevant expert teams of CAgM will be considered. Collaborations were defined with WMO activities in the frame of climate change impact and particularly with: Open Program Area Group (OPAG): ET on impact of climate risks in vulnerable areas: agrometeorological monitoring and coping strategies; ET on drought and extreme temperatures: preparedness and management for sustainable agriculture, rangelands, forestry, and fisheries WAMIS “World AgroMeteorological InformationService” International Society of Agricultural Meteorology (INSAM)

10. External contacts:Joint Research Centre The participation of delegates nominated by theJoint research centre of Ispra,represents very important point for the establishment of direct cooperation with European Commission: Institute for the protection and security of the citizen - Agricultural and fisheries unit Delegates: Fabio Micale Giampiero Genovese

11. External contacts: other COST Actions COST 725 Establishing a European Phenological Data Platform for Climatological Applications Andreja Susnik COST 726 Long term changes and climatology of UV radiation over Europe Tor Sivertsen COST ES0601 Advances in homogenisation methods of climate series: an integrated approach Vesselin Alexandrov

12. External contacts: Research projects ACCRETe Elena Mateescu CECILIA Tomas Halenka KLIMA2 Christian Kersebaum IPCC Lucka Kajfez Bogatai ENSEMBLESco-ordinated by Dave Griggs, (Director of Climate Research at the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research) CLAVIER Daniela Jacob

13. A collaboration with Climate Change and Energy Group of European Protection Agency was also defined EEA intend to include various indicators on changes in plant species and growing season, e.g. in natural ecosystems and agriculture. External contacts:EEA

14. External contacts: AEA Energy & Environment AEA are currently working on the European Commission project 'Adaptation to Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector‘, gathering information on national agricultural adaptive strategies. AEA would like to invite COST 734 to participate in this via the use of an online questionnaire this June.  This questionnaire is intended to confirm and expand on the picture of national adaptation that has emerged to date.  In particular, gathering additional information on:* Communication and awareness raising* Extension and advisory services* Insurance and weather derivative schemes

15. Web site The web site of the Action was set up and is now fully operational. All participants are encouraged to send a short CV, EoC and photo to Federica Rossi /f.rossi@ibimet.cnr.it/, together with information to update the site

16. Publications The following publications were supported by the Action: “Teaching programme of Training Summer School on Agrometeorological Simulation” in collaboration with Prof. Nicolas Dalezios

17. “Weather, Climate and Farmers” in collaboration with WMO

18. Presentations and reports Advances in homogenization methods of climate series: An integrated approach-Vesselin Alexandrov- Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. SPM accepted February 1st 2007 in Paris -Lucka Kajfez Bogataj- An Overview of Environmental Hazards Related to Crops in Greece-Nicolas Dalezios- Report on COST ACTION 734 contribution to Rio conference–Simone Orlandini-

19. Held MCM 20-22/05/2007 Poznan ( PL ) 3rd MC+WGs meeting 21-23/02/2007 Florence ( IT ) 2ndMC+WGs meeting 16-17/11/2006 Brussels ( BE ) 1st MC meeting 21/04/2006 Brussels ( BE ) Kick-off meeting of 734

20. Other held meetings 16/04/2007 Novi Sad ( RS ) Expert meeting 05/09/2006 Ljubljana ( SI ) Expert meeting at the EMS Conference 17/07/2006 Helsinki ( FI ) Climate Risk Conference

21. Planned meetings • 31/05/2007 Brussels ( BE ) Expert meeting

22. MCM2/D6 Valentin Kazandjev, BG to Austria MCM2/D7 Veska Georgieva, BG to Austria MCM2/D8 Christos Dominikiotis, GR to Denmark. MCM2/D9 Emanuel Tzinos, GR to Italy. Already done To be done Short term scientific mission

23. Self evaluation The participation of members already involved in previous Actions allowed the consolidation of group and the acquired experience represents an important point for the success of the planned activities. This, together with the organization of the kick off meeting in April 2006, allows a reasonable start of the activities and the establishment, after only few months from the first MC, of a very good working team with well defined goals and activities.

24. Future work plan. 1 QUESTIONNAIRES To evaluate the data collected with the questionnaires: understanding of the questions, number of received answers, improvement of structures To finish the collection of information from all the countries To define the method of analysis To finalize this activity: timetable, preparation of publication, dissemination of the results at European level for a deep transfer of the results.

25. Future work plan. 2 MEETINGS • Participation to EMS • Next MCM, WG WGs Activity • Definition of case studies according to the list of priority elaborated at 1MCM in Brussels • Collection of data and models • Analysis of data and preparation of written reports • Personal activity • The EoC is required before October 2007

26. Expression of commitment Typically, an individual EoC should contain a clear, specific and brief description of the intended contribution (ca. 2 pages), including at least the following elements: • Name of proposer(s), institution, contact information, title of contribution; • Which objective(s) of the MoU it will address; • Which parts of the scientific programme of the MoU it is concerned with; • What deliverables it will produce within the Action; • An indicative timetable for performing the proposed tasks; • How much manpower will be approximately dedicated to the Action; • Assurance that the necessary resources will be available; • Foreseen collaboration; • A short statement on previous experience in the field (incl. up to 5 relevant publications). A good EoC should address the following criteria: - Fit the Action's objectives; - Originality and quality of the proposed research; - Practical added-value to the Action;