Climate change

This working line is clearly divided into two distinct aspects: mitigation, which includes all the measures that can be adopted to mitigate global warming; and adaptation, which involves the development and evaluation of the most appropriate measures to make the national wine system more resilient against climate change, as well as predicting and evaluating not only the progression of these changes, but also the impacts that may result from them.

For that matter, the development of this working line aims at anticipating scenarios and impacts of climate change on the national viticulture; evaluate the impact of climate, and, particularly, of the water availability in the soil, on the vine productivity and wine quality obtained; build itineraries to minimize the effects of climate change, endowing the sector with the appropriate tools, among which the management of the grapevine water relations and the shaping of the relationships between soil, plant and atmosphere stand out.

As far as mitigation is concerned, since agriculture is nowadays responsible for the emission of 10% of greenhouse gases, as well as the main source of carbon sequestration from the soil and the plants that make up its productive systems, the actions to be carried out are related to assessment and minimisation of the sector’s carbon footprint; along with the assessment of the role played by the vine, as a cultivation, as well as of the associated infrastructures, as carbon sinks.

Goals:

• Anticipate scenarios and climate change impacts on the Portuguese wine regions.
• Mitigate the effect of climate change, endowing the sector with the appropriate tools.
• Management of the water relations in viticulture, especially the DDR.
• Evaluate the carbon footprint, as well as its retention, related to the sector’s activities.

This investigation line has been supported by the works carried out on the following projects:

• Climate monitorization in Douro Demarcated Region
• Short-term strategies to mitigate climate change on the Mediterranean Viticulture – ClimVineSafe
• Modelling the evolution of wine quality in the Douro Demarcated Region.
• Dourozone http://www.advid.pt/noticias?codNoticia=446 (adaptação)
• EUPORIAS (European Provision Of Regional Impacts Assessments on Seasonal and Decadal Timescales) - Modelling the impacts of climate change on the evolution of the wine quality in the DDR.
• Water scarcity Management based on the use of vegetation indices.
• CoaClimateRisk