Austria's goal of reaching netzero emissions by 2040 requires an up to tenfold expansion of solar photovoltaics. Besides roof-top installations, the development of ground mounted photovoltaics will be required, possibly creating conflicts with agricultural production. Here, we assess how the deployment of agrivoltaic installations can reduce the land-use competition between agriculture and electricity generation in Austria - and under which conditions such systems are profitable. For that purpose, we simulate electricity generation of agrivoltaic installations, and the reduction in agricultural output due to shading under past and future climate. Profits from electricity generation are significantly higher than those from agriculture, therefore making agrivoltaic schemes less profitable than stand-alone solar PV systems, even under the current regulatory scheme which grants higher subsidies to agrivoltaic systems. For attaining 90 TWhy-1 of electricity generation from solar PV on cropland, an upper bound in all climate neutrality scenarios, an amount of 5%-16% of total crop area is required. The required areas and the simulated reduction in the yield imply that the loss in Austrian crop production would reach 2%-6%. Only agrivoltaic systems are capable of achieving production losses at the lower end of the observed range. Climate change adaptation effects of agrivoltaic systems are minor.

Actors use different frames to advance their interests in agricultural policy-making processes. Five frames and 25 subframes have been identified by a qualitative content analysis of 1,155 newspaper articles in Austria’s largest agricultural newspaper Bauernzeitung during the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform process 2013. However, it remains unclear which actors make selective or repeated use of the identified frames and subframes and who forms a coalition with other actors along their policy core beliefs in order to influence agricultural policies. Therefore, we link the Advocacy Coalition Framework with frame analysis to explore actors’ frames and advocacy coalitions in the CAP reform process 2013. Our results show that the actors can be divided into two advocacy coalitions, namely the Agricultural Coalition and the Environmental Coalition. The Agricultural Coalition mainly uses the social balance subframe, the national politics subframe, the negotiation subframe, and the financial regulations subframe. The Environmental Coalition mainly uses the societal concerns frame and its associated subframes. Journalists act as policy brokers and use almost all subframes. The results accentuate that media are a welcome device to participate in agricultural policy-making processes and provide useful insights for a diverse group of CAP actors on how to target their communication strategy.

The European Commission's Farm to Fork strategy aims at reducing nutrient losses and fertilizer use, but has been criticized for its expected negative impacts on European economy, agriculture, and food supply. We apply an integrated modelling framework to analyze potential effects of fertilizer reductions on land use, nitrogen losses, and agricultural output of two fertilizer and four climate change scenarios. The fertilizer scenarios comprise a uniform 20 % reduction of mineral N fertilizer (f20) and a combination of several fertilizer restrictions (fcm). The model results indicate that the restrictions in fertilization lead to decreases in crop production of 6 to 9 %, whereas intensive and extensive grassland production increases. N losses to air, water, and soil are substantially reduced by 9 % (f20) and 20 % (fcm), yet fall short of the intended 50 % reduction. The regional heterogeneity of the model results shows that tailored measures need to be elaborated by taking climate change developments, the regional heterogeneity of prevalent farming systems, and bio-physical conditions into account. Uniform measures applied to the national policy context fall short to attain policy targets costeffectively. N emission capping, taxes or managerial measures such as crop rotational N balancing are options to be explored in future research.

Agriculture is a major source of non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, namely methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), and reactive trace gases, such as ammonia (NH3). CH4 emissions originate primarily from enteric fermentation of ruminants and during manure storage. N2O emissions are produced in microbial processes of soils and manure. Emissions of NH3 arise from livestock housing systems, manure storage and application to the soil as well as during grazing. Mitigating GHG emissions has emerged as a key priority for policy makers, researchers and stakeholders, evident in the ambitious emission reduction targets set at both the EU and national levels. However, mitigation measures at the farm level incur different marginal abatement costs (MACs) due to farm and regional specific characteristics. Farm specific calculations of MACs are still limited. Therefore, we aim at (i) modeling non-CO2 GHG emissions, (ii) computing MACs of mitigation measures and (iii) identifying cost-efficient mitigation measures for the Austrian farms using the Farm Optimization Model FAMOS. FAMOS is a mixed-integer linear farm optimization model implemented in GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling Systems; https://www.gams.com/). It is extended with a non-CO2 GHG emission accounting module that follows the guidelines for national GHG inventories provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Country and farm-specific emission factors are used in the non-CO2 GHG emission accounting. This module enhances the accuracy of emission calculations at the farm level. FAMOS maximizes farm net returns, defined as the sum of market revenues and policy payments minus the costs of production and investment, subject to the farm’s resource endowments such as available land, livestock housing capacity and farm family labor. Agronomic production relationships (e.g., fertilizer and feed balances), farm management practices (e.g., crop rotations, fertilization, irrigation, tillage, feeding and grazing strategies), and legal compliances (e.g., CAP measures and payments, fertilizer intensities as part of the Austrian agri-environmental OEPUL programme) are taken into account. The model uses farm level data from various data sources (e.g., Farm Structure Survey, Integrated Administration and Control System, Standard Gross Margin Catalogue) and is individually solved for each farm in Austria. The model results show that the MACs of mitigation measures differ between farm types and agricultural production regions. For instance, MACs are higher for specialized farms with few and labor-intensive management options. The MACs are lower for managerial measures (e.g., changes in fertilizer management), compared to technological (e.g., changes in livestock housing) and agronomic measures (e.g., cover cropping). Our analysis complements the existing research by calculating MACs of selected mitigation measures at farm level. These results may inform farmers, farm consultants and policy makers in fostering the implementation of cost-efficient mitigation strategies at farm level.

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Bioeconomy strategies promote higher shares of biomass products in material and energy sectors. Deploying by-products from sawmills is therefore of major interest. This study aims at analyzing market characteristics and implications of bioeconomy strategies by combining three methods: First, an econometric supply and demand model for sawmill by-products (SBP) was estimated based on data from 2001 to 2020. Second, the model was used to analyze a reference and a bioeconomy scenario. Third, a use case was analyzed dealing with the integration of wood gasification and BioSNG (Synthetic Natural Gas) production into Austrian flows of SBP. The results indicate that SBP supply reacts unit-elastic to sawnwood exports, while both supply and demand respond inelastic to SBP prices. Demand is positively inelastic related to SBP as input in panel and pellet production. In a bioeconomy scenario, long-term supply would exceed demand, resulting in additional SBP to be used for gasification. A 100 MW BioSNG plant converting these SBP could provide 528 MWh BioSNG per year. This is a 11 % share of the Austrian target value of 5 TWh green gas.

Smallholder farmers are disproportionally vulnerable to climate change, and knowledge on cognitive factors and processes is required to successfully support their adaptation to climate change. Hence, we apply a qualitative interview approach to investigate smallholder farmers’ adaptation intentions and behavior. The theoretical Model of Private Proactive Adaptation to Climate Change has guided data collection and analysis. We conducted twenty semi-structured interviews with smallholder farmers living and working in Tiruchirappalli District in South India. We applied a qualitative content analysis by combining a content-structuring with a type-building approach. The systematic analysis resulted in four types of smallholder farmers that differ in the formation of adaptation intentions. Three of these types intend to adapt and follow different adaptation plans: (i) innovative measures that are new to the farm or region and are considered effective to overcome the detriments experienced from past efforts, (ii) contractive measures such as selling land or livestock, and (iii) retaining past measures they consider effective while relying on their access to resources. Only one type does not intend to adapt, emphasizing that rain is absolutely necessary to continue farming. We conclude that public efforts could focus on education and training programs adjusted to the farmers’ needs, measures to maintain or increase the fertility of land and farmers’ livelihood, flexible water conservation technologies and regular checking of dams, fostering combined adaptation and mitigation measures, providing access to loans up to debt cancellation, and offering physical and mental health programs.

The reform process of the CAP is increasingly open to actors that apply different frames. Recent research reveals the consistent use of five frames during CAP reform processes: the policy mechanism frame, the farmers’ economic frame, the societal concerns frame, the budgetary frame, and the foreign trade frame. Our qualitative content analysis of 1,155 newspaper articles from Austria’s largest agricultural newspaper published between 01/10/2010 and 31/01/2015 confirms that these five frames are also used in national CAP reporting and consist of subframes. The European Commission (EC), the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union, which are involved in the CAP legislative process, mainly use the policy mechanism frame. The farmers’ economic frame and the policy mechanism frame are applied throughout the reform process. The societal concerns frame is gradually used over time, while the foreign trade frame is limited to specific events. The budgetary frame increasingly refers to public money for public goods, which indicates that the EC and other actors put efforts into legitimising the CAP. The results emphasise that both, agricultural and environmental actors use agricultural media to generate support for or condemnation of agricultural policy and thereby affect political agenda-setting.

The dominant agricultural sector in Slovakia is crop production, with the majority of arable land dedicated to cultivating cereals (57%), followed by fodder crops (20%) and industrial crops (19%). Slovakia has technical and biophysical potential for expanding biomass production. However, it is crucial to identify optimal production practices, alternative costs, and environmental outputs. Farms become more vulnerable to the worldwide threat posed by climate change. Based on research, farmers can effectively mitigate the adverse effects of climate change by making necessary adjustments to their current farming techniques. Thus, by using an advanced tool like integrated farm models, farmers can evaluate and manage a range of risks related to their activities. This paper aims to present the application of integrated modelling frameworks at the farm level and propose a framework for studying the consequences of climate change through a scenario-based approach at the farm level. Integrated assessments provide new insights that complement those derived from more detailed assessments. Based on the model developed, the results of two research questions are provided. Since, from the viewpoint of the farmer, risk and unpredictability associated with lower yields are frequently the main causes of lower income, spatially explicit integrated modelling is applied, enabling economic optimisation of crop production on a selected farm with a focus on maximising net returns while considering biophysical parameters. The modelling results depict the distribution of selected crops on arable land and the most suitable management practices for crop production in terms of nitrogen application and irrigation utilisation. Additionally, we develop an integrated model proposing the estimation of the risk of yield variability and nitrogen emissions for three climate change scenarios for the simulated period of 2020-2100 on the model farm. In response to the problems posed by climate change, this integrated approach can assist evidence-based decision-making and sustainable agriculture practices.

Glyphosate is controversially discussed because of its alleged harmful effects on human health and the environment. Although it is approved until December 2022 in the European Union, the Austrian government discusses a national ban. Research on farmers’ intentions to deal with upcoming pesticide policy changes is limited and planned responses to a national glyphosate ban may inform accompanying measures and the development of weed management alternatives. Therefore, we have conducted 41 qualitative semi-structured interviews with farmers to explore their intended weed management if glyphosate-based herbicides were no longer available in Austria. The interviews were systematically analyzed, whereby the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with its three social-psychological constructs served as guidance, i.e., attitude toward the planned behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control toward the planned behavior. We grouped farmers based on differences in their behavioral intentions toward glyphosate-free weed management, and identified four types of farmers by assigning group-specific attributes of the TPB constructs to the groups of farmers with similar behavioral intentions. Given a national glyphosate ban, the farmers intend to implement either mechanical or chemical alternatives, which would be solely applied or combined with changes in cultivation. Attitude toward the planned behavior, descriptive norms, and perceived behavioral control affect behavioral intentions, whereas injunctive norms do not differ much between the interviewed farmers. What unites the four types of farmers is that they would rather accept a glyphosate ban, if weed management alternatives with similar effectiveness and costs were available.

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Purpose Climate change, poverty and pandemics are some of the complex real-world problems that are increasingly challenging higher education institutions (HEIs) to equip future graduates with meta-competences that have hitherto not been demanded. These graduates need to be able to capture and operate within complex systems and relationships. By focusing on complex real-world problems, this study aims to systematically review competences and frame meta-competences supporting curricula development in HEIs. Design/methodology/approach This study applies a systematic literature review according to the review protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The review process resulted in the selection of 39 articles, which were subjected to qualitative synthesis to identify competences for tackling complex real-world problems. These competences were grouped into meta-competences and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Findings Scientific disciplines commonly describe four competences for tackling complex real-world problems including domain-specific competence, inter-relation competence, intrapersonal competence and normative competence. Originality This study found that inter-relation competence is in line with all the SDGs, which is considered important for tackling complex real-world problems across disciplines. Research limitations/implications A study in a survey design across disciplines and a weighting of these competences in respect to complex real-world problems aligned with the SDGs could contribute to a more consolidated and common understanding of the meta-competences identified.

The European Union set the goal to meet 32% of its final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030. Other than fossil or nuclear electricity generation, VRE produce electricity not at a few individual locations, but distributed throughout a country. Even though solar PV can be generated on urban infrastructure, e.g. on rooftops or above parking spaces, this potential is limited and costs are usually higher than those for ground mounted PV. It is therefore likely that substantial amounts of solar PV have to be deployed as ground mounted PV and land use conflicts may arise from this infrastructure expansion. Mainly land which is currently under agricultural use would be available for that purpose. As this would imply a competition between food, feed, and electricity production, expansion on that kind of land is discussed controversially. One option for minimizing this conflict is an integrated use of agricultural land, producing both agricultural products and electricity from PV. To better understand the synergies and trade-offs, A thorough analysis of integrated PV and agricultural production on a large scale is necessary. This work presents a simulation framework to determine electricity as well as crop production of APV systems at high temporal and spatial resolution. Radiation data, digital height data and land cover data function as input data to find suitable areas and simulate the APV system power output.

Aims Terrestrial biodiversity is threatened by land use change. Modelling suggests that the remaining, potentially arable areas of natural intact vegetation (rNIV) of 9 of 35 global biodiversity hotspots may be converted to agriculture by 2050, committing their endemic species to extinction. Studies have shown that if the global population adopted a healthy, mostly plant based diet, agricultural area expansion can be reduced. We want to examine to what degree this applies to the regions covered by biodiversity hotspots. Location Global. Time period 2020-2050. Major taxa studied No particular taxa. Methods For every biodiversity hotspot, we simulate climate change impacts on agricultural productivity, and estimate food demand shifts from 2010 to 2050 by processing population and income growth projections. We quantify the net change in rNIV by 2050 in all hotspots by calculating the agricultural area necessary to meet the food demand under a business as usual, a healthy diet, a healthy diet plus agricultural intensification, and a healthy diet plus agricultural intensification plus crop change scenario. Results In the healthy diet scenario, the rNIV of 16-21 hotspots can be preserved entirely, but 5-6 hotspots in less developed regions may lose all rNIV to agricultural area expansion. In these regions, a healthy diet implies an increase in consumed calories and no change in the already high share of plant-based calories. When combined with agricultural intensification, these hotspots will still lose 7%-92% of rNIV. Only an additional change in crop mix patterns may preserve all. Main conclusions While a change in dietary habits may be sufficient for preservation of rNIV in many hotspot regions, a healthy diet actually puts more pressure on rNIV in other hotspot regions. Intensifying agriculture and optimizing crop selection should be priorities in those regions to mitigate the expected loss of rNIV to agricultural expansion.

The continuous spread of the invasive Western Corn Rootworm (WCR; Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) poses a threat to maize production regions. We develop a spatially explicit integrated modelling framework to analyse the performance of cost-effective WCR regulation policies for 2010-2040 at 1 km spatial resolution in Austria. A modelled future baseline WCR abundance is used to design 15 alternative WCR regulation policies differing in regional delineation, risk propensity, and maize restriction levels. We calculate cost-effectiveness ratios to rank the overall performance of alternative WCR regulation policies considering three climate scenarios and two policy implementation levels. The model results show that with the best performing WCR regulation policy, reducing 1 ha high WCR abundance area comes with a decrease in total net returns of 112 euro , assuming optimal cropland use under similar climate conditions. Moreover, marginal opportunity costs of policy compliance (costs for switching to the second-best alternative) vary spatially, by policy configuration, and among climate scenarios. According to the results, wetter climate conditions lead to higher and drier climate conditions to lower marginal opportunity costs compared to climate conditions similar to the past. The analysis provides a sound basis for costeffective policy design and implementation to regulate WCR infestation.

Region-specific groundwater policies are required to regulate groundwater extraction for agricultural irrigation and reduce climate change adaption externalities. We examine the semi-arid Seewinkel region in Austria and explore interactions between climatic, agronomic, hydrological, and socio-economic conditions and processes to provide policy advice. The assessment is conducted with a spatially explicit integrated modeling framework to analyze impacts on land and irrigation water use, land management, and net benefits of agricultural production. The model results show that with imposed groundwater restrictions for irrigation, land use shifts from irrigated vineyards to mostly rainfed cropland with declining regional net benefits of agricultural production. The direction of change is similar for a DRY, SIMILAR, and WET climate scenario, while the magnitude differs. We estimate that an increase of the marginal value of groundwater extraction for irrigation by 0.1 (sic)/m(3) results in an average decrease in groundwater extraction volumes by 17.2 Mm(3) in DRY, 6.3 Mm(3) in SIMILAR, and 6.4 Mm(3) in WET. Furthermore, regional net benefits of agricultural production decrease by 3.4 M(sic) in DRY and SIMILAR, and by 1.6 M(sic) in WET, on average. Our assessment highlights that efficient groundwater policies can help to sustain groundwater availability in semi-arid regions, particularly under climate change.

Multiple societal challenges such as climate change, water pollution and biodiversity loss require coordinated measures. Thereby the adoption of a nexus perspective is expedient. It acknowledges relationships between natural and social entities, and takes synergies and trade-offs of planned and implemented measures into account. We adopt a nexus perspective to elicit sectoral stakeholders' perceptions on the relationships of the regional nexus entities, relevant measures and their perceived synergies and trade-offs in the semi-arid agricultural production region Seewinkel in East Austria. In a multi-step cognitive mapping approach, consisting of a workshop and semi-structured interviews, we developed an aggregated cognitive map with perceptions of stakeholders from agriculture, water management, nature conservation, tourism, the civil society, renewable energy and hunting. Workshop and interview transcripts were analyzed by means of a qualitative content analysis. Stakeholders agree on the priority of a good quantitative and chemical status of the regional groundwater body and a location-adapted agricultural production. They propose a combination of market-based, legal and technical measures supported by cross-sectoral institutions in responding to regional nexus challenges. Stakeholders perceive divergent synergies and trade-offs. Perceived synergies may provide opportunities, which have not yet been considered for planning of measures. Perceived trade-offs require further examination and cross-sectoral discussion to encourage the implementation of measures. The aggregated cognitive map may improve stakeholders' understanding for nexus relationships and facilitate social learning through viewing the interlinked nexus from distance and different perspectives. This may facilitate cross-sectoral dialogue and enable collective decision making to tackle regional nexus challenges.

Trade liberalization in the early 21st century increased the adaptation capacity of global food systems to climate change; further liberalization and trade facilitation could help to avoid dozens of millions being undernourished at mid-century. The global trade agenda should explicitly include climate change adaptation to achieve SDG 2 Zero Hunger.

Empirical analyses of interlinkages and price dependencies in the forest-based sector support the forecast of market developments and the design of efficient utilization pathways. This article aims at analysing price cointegration between roundwood (sawlogs, pulpwood), sawmill by-products (sawdust, wood chips) and wood products (pellets, particle board) in the forest-based sector in Austria. Monthly price data for the period 2005–2019 were used for the following statistical tests: (1) The Augmented-Dickey-Fuller and Zivot-Andrews unit root tests were conducted to investigate stationarity of the data; (2) The Johansen Cointegration test was pairwise applied to price time series; (3) The Granger Causality test was used for cointegrated time series to examine which one is price leading. Furthermore, sawmill by-product prices were modelled as Vector Error Correction Models (VECM) to analyse their common behaviour. The dataset was divided to a training (2005–2017) and test (2018–2019) subset to assess the prediction accuracy of the models. The training data were used to estimate a VAR model as basis for forecasts, which were compared to the test data. Results show that sawdust prices are cointegrated and thus modelled with pellet and particle board prices. In contrast, wood chips are used for several applications and thus prices are cointegrated and modelled with prices of sawlogs, pulpwood, pellets and particle board. The comparison with the test data showed that forecasts were able to predict data from 2018 to 2019 well. However, a decrease in prices, starting in 2019 and intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, could not be fully captured by these forecasts.

We review concepts that have been used to address uncertainty in integrated modeling. Although conceptual approaches to tackle uncertainty seem diverse, a synthesis reveals more similarities than differences in the concepts published, especially if one adopts a model application-oriented focus. Given our findings, we slightly adapt the uncertainty framework table (UFT) developed by Walker et al. (2003) and apply it for an existing integrated modeling framework for the bio-economy. The use of color coded UFTs with a graphical visualization of uncertainty propagation pathways has facilitated a better overview and communication of uncertainties and uncertainty propagation pathways among the authors. Systematic consideration of uncertainties in integrated modeling may allow for more trust in model results and, if simulations are conducted, for a better robustness check of policy interventions.