Prospective regional analysis of olive and olive fly in Andalusia under climate change using physiologically based demographic modeling powered by cloud computing

The Spanish region of Andalusia is the world-leading olive oil producer. Its olive-dominated landscapes are among the most biodiverse drylands of the globe and prospectively among the areas most affected by climate change. This analysis used physiologically based demographic modeling (PBDM) to assess the impact of climate change on the olive/olive fly system of Andalusia. The analysis was implemented on cloud computing, allowing PBDM models to be run from any computer connected to the internet, to interface with state-of-the-art climatic drivers, and to scale efficiently with increasing computational loads and user requests. Findings include that chilling required for olive blooming will decrease in large areas of the Andalusian provinces of Jaen, Cordoba, and Sevilla, with some areas not meeting the minimum chilling threshold and some accumulating no chilling by the end of the century under the high greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenario. Olive blooming will occur up to five weeks earlier in the Jaen, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Granada provinces, but olive yield is expected to increase or remain stable. Olive fly infestation will decrease with climate change, with infestations below the reference economic threshold of 4 % towards the end of the century in some areas under high GHG emission scenario. Measures to adapt Andalusian olive systems to climate change include: selecting olive cultivars with lower chilling requirements; implementing cover crops to enhance water use efficiency under increased CO2 concentration and uncertain precipitation projections; and targeting the spring generation of the fly and diversifying the olive landscape to reduce infestation levels.
We acknowledge Dr. Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, for providing early access to the AgERA5 data. The Center for the Analysis of Sustainable Agricultural Systems (http://www.casasglobal.org/) provided logistical and scientific support to the MED-GOLD project. This work was supported by the project MED-GOLD that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 776467 and by the project TEBAKA (project ID: ARS01_00815) co-funded by the European Union - ERDF and ESF, “PON Ricerca e Innovazione 2014-2020”.
Peer Reviewed
"Article signat per 19 autors/es: Luigi Ponti, Andrew Paul Gutierrez, Christos Giannakopoulos, Konstantinos V. Varotsos, Javier López Nevado, Silvia López Feria, Freddy Wilmer Rivas González, Federico Caboni, Federica Stocchino, Adolfo Rosati, Damiano Marchionni, José Ricardo Cure, Daniel Rodríguez, Marta Terrado, Matteo De Felice, Alessandro Dell'Aquila, Sandro Calmanti, Ricardo Arjona, Michael Sanderson"
Postprint (published version)