Contact © European Union, 2012 Tailoring BioMA to assess climate change impact and adaptation options for Cuban agriculture Project Goal The BASAL project addresses the long-term sustainability of Cuban agriculture by providing farmers, researchers and decision-makers with the tools, methodology and knowledge to deal with climate change- related effects on food production and natural resources sustainability. Cuba’s agricultural policies attempt to achieve food security goals by: Maintaining or increasing productivity while conserving the natural resource base. Reducing food imports and increasing exports. Tackling the negative impacts of high input agriculture. Transforming agricultural systems from large scale, state managed monocultures to small scale, diverse and independently managed. However imminent and ongoing challenges to achieve food security goals have to be considered for planned adaptation. Project Approach The JRC-MARS component of BASAL contributes to its goals by introducing, adapting and applying the Biophysical Model Application (BioMA) framework in collaboration with INSMET to communicate modeling applications to stakeholders. BioMA framework for BASAL The applied modelling framework will be developed in three phases to ensure local stakeholders empowerment to apply and maintain the system. Phase 1: Making the BioMA platform available: 1.Deployment of BioMA platform adapted from the EUROCLIMA project. 2.Evaluate and define new requirements. 3.Training scientists on BioMA and modeling approaches used. Phase 2: Building a context specific BioMA application 1.Adding data at finer spatial resolution. 2.Defining requirements of the web portal with stakeholders. 3.Adding model capabilities (i.e. more crops) and calibrating according to user needs. Phase 3: Full system prototype: 1.Web portal testing and further customization. 2.Applications to assess climate change impacts and adaptations options. 3.Presentation, discussion and dissemination of results. For MARS-JRC component: Maurits van den Berg (JRC-Italy) at, Joysee M. Rodriguez (JRC-Italy) at Ransés José Vázquez Montenegro (INSMET-Cuba) at Research by the Institute of Meteorology (INSMET) in Cuba demonstrates ongoing effects of climate change: Increase in frequency and intensity of extreme meteorological events. Decrease of rainfall during rainy season and increases during dry season. Significant temperature increase. Increase in frequency, length, intensity and geographic extent of drought. Increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Increased incidence and extent of areas affected by fires. Examples of observed impacts on crops: Sugar cane: harvest affected by unusual rainfall events during dry season. Droughts induced damages to recently planted areas. Potatoes: delayed induction of tuber formation due to higher than normal night temperatures. Soils - ISRIC-SOTER database and Cuban soils map Climate: SRES scenarios A1B and B1 at 25x25km for – EUROCLIMA project Crop parameters from Euroclima Agromanagement: adapted crop calendars from Cuba and FAO BioMA from EUROCLIMA BioMA Applications for Cuba Impact Assesment/potential adaptation options New soils mapDownscaled climate Scenarios Context especific BioMA Land useRegional and local agro-management Historical climate time series Change to small scale, individually managed food crops Reduce rice imports while increasing local production Imports Prototyping Interaction with stakeholders on web portal Drought lenght and geographic extent More crops/ model calibration