HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION SCENARIOS FOR VINEYARD ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

International audienceVarious studies on vine’s climate adaptability under different climate change scenarios show that we can expect major upheavals at global level, with the disappearance of some wine-growing regions by 2100. These studies, based specifically on climate simulation, propose fairly “brutal” methods to adapt to climate change, for instance moving wine-growing regions or changing varietals. Studies on the impact of climate change only cover major global wine regions, however, without taking into account the spatial variability of climate on finer scales. However, atmospheric parameters at the level of the boundary layer depend on surface conditions (surface roughness and type), and these can cause significant spatial variability in relatively small areas (from a few square metres to a few square kilometres). A wine’s specific features are determined by these fine-scale variations (e.g. slope, exposure, type of soil, etc.), and it is at the scale of the plot that winemakers manage their estate and adapt to the climate, notably by agricultural practices (tillage, work on the vine, etc.). The spatial variability of climate at local scale should therefore be taken into account when defining a rational climate change adaptation policy. Despite the huge progress made in the last ten years in terms of the spatial resolution of climate projections (narrowed down to a few square kilometres), they are not yet sufficiently precise enough to take into account the influence of local parameters (such as topography and soil types), although these parameters are decisive for the vine’s and wines’ characteristics. Combined with regional climate scenarios, analysing the spatial variability of local climate makes it possible to fine-tune the models’ spatial resolution and to propose rational adaptation methods at the level of the estate rather than at the level of major wine regions. In the European LIFE-ADVICLIM programme (ADapatation of VIticulture to CLIMate change: High resolution observations of adaptation scenarii for viticulture), spatial climate variability at the local scale has been integrated into the outputs of regionalized climate change models. Fine scale agro-climatic modelling, combined with winegrowers' production strategies in a multi-agent system, has enabled climate change adaptation scenarios based on spatial climate variability at the vineyard scale to be constructed. An assessment of greenhouse gas emissions was then carried out to assess the carbon footprint for each adaptation scenario. This project aims to inform and assist winegrowers on climate change impacts, on rational adaptation scenarios and on greenhouse gas emissions related to their practices at the scale of their vineyard plots. These methodologies have been applied in several wine-growing pilot sites - Bordeaux and Val de Loire (France), Sussex (England), Rheingau (Germany), Cotnari (Romania) and Rioja (Spain) - representative of the climate diversity of European wine-growing areas, ranging from Mediterranean, oceanic and continental climates