InsuranceGrass: Assessment of formal, natural and social insurances: how to cope best with impacts of extreme events on grasslands for sustainable farming systems?
Motivation
The impacts of climate change pose one of the main challenges for agriculture in Central Europe. In particular, an increase of extreme and compound extreme events (i.e. joint extremes of multiple climatic variables) is expected to strongly impact economic revenues and the provision of ecosystem services by agroecosystems. A highly relevant, still open question is how grassland farming systems can cope best with these climate risks. A prominently discussed economic instrument to relieve income risks is the formal insurance, but natural and social insurances are newly under discussion as well. Thus, in order to assess these new forms of insurances, more information is needed.
Objectives
With external page four sub-projects, InsuranceGrass takes an innovative interdisciplinary view and assesses formal, natural and social insurances: on how to cope best with impacts of climate extremes on grasslands, integrating social and natural sciences perspectives and feedbacks between them. Based on this holistic analysis, InsuranceGrass will provide recommendations for policy and insurance design to ensure effective risk-coping of farmers and to enhance sustainable grassland farming, considering economic, environmental and social aspects.
In our sub-project, we ask the question "What is the impact of extreme and compound extreme events on permanent grasslands and their provision of ecosystem services?". This will be investigated along three tasks:
- Compile a benchmark set of ecosystem services for permanent grasslands
- Characeterise extreme and compound extreme events
- Assess the impact of extreme and compound extreme events on the provision of ES
Publications
Wang Y, Klaus VH, Gilgen AK, Buchmann N (2025) Temperate grasslands under climate extremes: effects of plant diversity on ecosystem services. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 379: 109372, doi: external page 10.1016/j.agee.2024.109372
Wang Y, Klaus VH, Gilgen AK, Buchmann N (2024) Ecosystem services of temperate grasslands under climatic extremes: a literature review. Grassland Science in Europe 29: 195-197 [Proceedings of the 30th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation on "Why grasslands?"], external page pdf of proceedings
Nelson JA, Walther S, Gans F, Kraft B, Weber U, Novick K, Buchmann N, Migliavacca M, Wohlfahrt G, Šigut L, Ibrom A, Papale D, Göckede M, Duveiller G, Knohl A, Hörtnagl L, Scott RL, Zhang W, Hamdi ZM, Reichstein M, Aranda-Barranco S, Ardö J, Op de Beeck M, Billdesbach D, Bowling D, Bracho R, Brümmer C, Camps-Valls G, Chen S, Cleverly JR, Desai A, Dong G, El-Madany TS, Euskirchen ES, Feigenwinter I, Galvagno M, Gerosa GA, Gielen B, Goslee I, Goslee S, Gough CM, Heinesch B, Ichii K, Jackowicz-Korczynski MA, Klosterhalfen A, Knox S, Kobayashi H, Kohonen KM, Korkiakoski M, Mammarella I, Gharun M, Marzuoli R, Matamala R, Metzger S, Montagnani L, Nicolini G, O'Halloran T, Ourcival JM, Peichl M, Pendall E, Ruiz Reverter B, Roland M, Sabbatini S, Sachs T, Schmidt M, Schwalm CR, Shekhar A, Silberstein R, Silveira ML, Spano D, Tagesson T, Tramontana G, Trotta C, Turco F, Vesala T, Vincke C, Vitale D, Vivoni ER, Wang Y, Woodgate W, Yepez EA, Zhang J, Zona D, Jung M (2024) X-BASE: the first terrestrial carbon and water flux products from an extended data-driven scaling framework, FLUXCOM-X. Biogeosciences 21: 5079-5115, doi: external page 10.5194/bg-21-5079-2024
Nelson JA, ..., Buchmann N, ..., Hörtnagl L, ..., Feigenwinter I, ..., Kohonen KM, ..., Shekhar A, ..., Turco F, ..., Wang Y, et al. (2024) X-BASE: the first terrestrial carbon and water flux products from an extended data-driven scaling framework, FLUXCOM-X. EGUsphere [preprint], doi: external page 10.5194/egusphere-2024-165