ACRI: Agro-Climate Risk Intelligence

Climate change is increasingly influencing agricultural systems in Europe through rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and a higher frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, heavy precipitation or late frosts. These changes affect plant development, increase production risks and can change the climatic suitability of agricultural regions. At the same time, it remains a challenge to translate climate information into usable decision-making bases for agriculture. The Destination Earth initiative (DestinE) provides high-resolution climate simulations for this purpose, which open up new possibilities for advanced climate risk analyses. Goals and innovation content The project is developing a proof-of-concept (TRL4) for the Agro-Climate Risk Intelligence (ACRI) framework, which combines climate simulations from the DestinE Climate and Extremes Digital Twins with Earth observation data and plant growth models. Using the ARIS modelling approach, it will analyse how climatic conditions affect plant development, climate stress and potential yield impacts in Europe. Expected results The project provides a methodological framework as well as analytical workflows for the assessment of climate-related crop risks, including indicators of heat stress, drought stress, waterlogging and frost risks. Demonstration visualisations show spatial patterns of climate-related risks and potential impacts on selected crops. The results demonstrate the feasibility of combining DestinE climate data, Earth observation information and crop modelling for the analysis of agricultural climate risks and form the basis for a possible future development into an operational service.