Provider: Ministerstvo zemědělství
Another participant in the project: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: Organic farming; Conventional farming; Ecosystem services assessment and valuation; Agrarian ecosystems
Annotation of project:
The project aims to compare the impact of conventional (CF) and organic farming (OF) on the provision of ecosystem services (ES), using own research, available data and literature. ES whose provision is crucial both for the long-term resilience of agrarian ecosystems and for maintaining the resilience of the whole environment will be quantified. By quantifying ES in biophysical units (in OF and CF) and their subsequent assessment, including life cycle assessment of selected agricultural products, the hitherto insufficiently under-considered added value of OF production in relation to the ES will be analysed. Arguments and recommendations for (adjusting) the setting of OF support in accordance with the Czech Action Plan of OF and other related documents will be formulated.

Provider: Ministerstvo zemědělství
Another participant in the project: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: wind erosion; GAEC; climate
Annotation of project:
The aim of the project is to prepare documents for the state administration, which in the context of soil protection and sustainable management would enable it to comprehensively grasp the issue of wind erosion in the Czech Republic, including its impacts on land drying and rational area of crops. The solution will use state-of-the-art approaches to modeling long-term soil loss compatible with EU requirements, and will include predictions of developments due to global change. The relevance, timeliness and quality of soil and climatic data entering the model are ensured by the composition of the research team. The results of the model will be verified and calibrated by field and laboratory determination of the real soil loss. The conditions of good agricultural practice (DZES 5) as well.

Provider: Ministerstvo zemědělství
Coordinating recipient: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: Carbon farming; carbon sequestration; nitrous oxide; methane; cover crops; intercropping; no-till technologies
Annotation of project:
Design an effective management system on agricultural land leading to long-term sequestration of stable carbon in the soil in the form of MAOM (mineral-associated organic matter) and a significant reduction in nitrous oxide or methane emissions. Design decision support tools for evaluating the spatial variability of the stable organic carbon sequestration potential in soil and develop an online portal for quantifying the stable carbon sequestration for the proposed system of measures and given local conditions, including an economic evaluation. Propose the most efficient and accurate methods for evaluating and certifying the amount of long-term sequestered carbon. Develop the expert tool supporting the reduction of nitrous oxide and methane emissions.

Provider: Grantová agentura České republiky
Another participant in the project: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: biogeochemistry; calcium; nitrogen; phosphorus; acidification; eutrophication; transpiration; water-use efficiency; WUE; forest; ecosystem; Norway spruce; European beech
Annotation of project:
Studies suggest that plant intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE), the ratio of carbon assimilation to water loss, has increased in response to increases in atmospheric CO2. However, the magnitude of iWUE changes in time and space remains highly uncertain. We propose that changes in tree iWUE might be closely linked to the availability of calcium (Ca) due to its essential role in leaf gas exchange. To unravel the complex feedbacks among environmental factors influencing tree physiology (namely Ca), we seek to sample tree rings, foliage and soils of a variety of tree stands (coniferous and broadleaves) alongside nutrients (Ca, nitrogen [N], phosphorus [P]) gradient. Application of the dual carbon-oxygen isotope measurements will clarify contributions of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance on century long iWUE trends. Given the uniqueness of our sites, arising from the diverse legacy of acidic deposition (directly affecting Ca and N availability), we will test to what extent the iWUE long-term trends and current spatial distribution are modulated by catchment Ca (N, P) availability.

Provider: Grantová agentura České republiky
Coordinating recipient: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: drought;validation; drought event trajectories;agricultural drought;hydrological drought; drought typlogy; global drought event catalogue;accumulated impacts;soil moisture
Annotation of project:
Drought represents one of the costliest natural extreme facing society and a fundamental shift in the study methods is needed. The team will apply validated SoilClim soil moisture and mHM hydrological models on the global scale. The team will: i) create a global catalog of dry episodes between 1951 and 2022 with time/space resolution of 1day/0.1 °; ii) analyze individual dry episodes and their dynamics; iii) develop a drought typology based on dynamic characteristics (e.g. genesis, intensification etc.); iv) evaluate the relationship between type of drought and range of impacts; v) develop methods for examining trajectories of dry events and/or their expansion/reduction, and vi) evaluate the relationship between atmospheric circulation and drought types. DynamicDrought will examine drought as a series of distinctive events and categorize them through their origin and dynamics across the World. Such comprehensive approach will enhance our knowledge regarding the causes of droughts, their internal dynamics, interrelationships and the accumulation of impacts.

Provider: Grantová agentura České republiky
Recipient: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: archaeology; central Europe; climate reconstructions; dendroclimatology; drought; ecophysiology; Holocene; hydroclimate; oaks; paleoclimate; proxy archives; stable isotopes; tree rings
Annotation of project:
We propose to extend our recently published 2000-year-long Czech drought reconstruction by another six millennia back in time. To reconstruct hydroclimate over much of the Holocene, we will use advanced accelerated mass spectrometry to measure stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios (δ13C & δ18O) in precisely dated annual tree rings from more than 500 archaeological and subfossil oaks from the Czech Republic and southeastern Bavaria. Our new reconstruction will i) fill a spatiotemporal gap in the landscape of climate proxy archives, ii) contribute to a better understanding of central European drought variability during the past 8000 years, iii) play a role in resolving the so-called ‘Holocene Conundrum’, iv) help disentangling the relative contributions of natural and anthropogenic climate forcing factors, v) offer realistic targets and uncertainties for coupled climate and eco-physiological model simulations, and vi) provide an environmental benchmark for archaeological investigations into the Early Neolithic Revolution and many other periods of societal transformation thereafter.

Provider: Interreg Central Europe
Recipient: Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service
Recipient: Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute
Recipient: Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation - State Research Institute
Recipient: Masarykova Univerzita
Recipient: Technische Universität Wien
Recipient: Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research
Recipient: Slovenian Environment Agency
Coordinating recipient: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: drought, heatwaves, fire weather
Annotation of project:
The frequency, duration, and severity of drought, heatwaves, and fire weather (DHF) in the Central European (CE) region is expected to increase as a result of ongoing climate change. Water scarcity and drought represent challenges that are often incorporated in legal frameworks of CE countries especially after recent series of droughts. However, heatwaves and fire weather have not yet been properly addressed in legislation documents and together with drought have often not been implemented into strategies and efforts aiming to increase resilience. The direct threat posed by DHF events to human wellbeing and environment urgently requires attention. That has been prevented partially due to an absence of tools that monitor, predict, and spread awareness of DHF on an operational basis. This leads to an unpreparedness to DHF events on regional, national, and crossborder levels. The Clim4Cast project will create a STEP-CHANGE (change much bigger than usual) as the project partners will jointly develop and establish a multi-temporal DHF forecast which will be integrated into existing national drought monitoring platforms of the 7 participating countries. The project will also estimate the effect of climate change on the occurrence and characteristics of DHF events. The results will be a base for a strategy to increase climate change and DHF awareness. A special action plan that sets up proper response mechanisms will be developed was well. The uniqueness of Clim4Cast lies firstly in sharing and jointly utilising existing partner knowledge of (1) extreme weather and climate events, (2) diverse strategies of communication, and (3) established networks of stakeholders and users of the newly-developed tool. Secondly, the project will develop and implement multi-temporal forecast that is currently missing in existing tools. The project output will serve as an early warning system that can be utilised by diverse stakeholders and implemented into national legislative frameworks.

Provider: HORIZON EUROPE
Coordinating recipient: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: Climatic research, Transformations; Systems Change; Behaviour Change; Governance; Land Use Modelling; Interventions; Planning and Policy
Annotation of project:
PLUS Change brings together 23 institutions from across Europe including 5 Universities, 5 research institutes, 3 stakeholder network organisations, 1 performing arts collective, and 9 practice partners representing regional planning and land management authorities and organisations. The objectives directly address the call with an aim to create land use strategies and decision-making processes that meet climate, biodiversity and human well-being objectives of sustainability, and to develop interventions that leverage political, economic, societal, material and cultural contexts to achieve these strategies, by involving actors at multiple decision-making levels (individual, land management, planning, policy). Activities include land use modelling (including historical and future trajectories of change), systems mapping, causal loop diagrams, performing arts approaches, randomized controlled trials of behaviour change, sociological surveys, and policy and governance reviews. All activities brought together in an integrated research design that draws on their different contributions to a holistic approach to understand multi-scale land use systems across a diversity of socioeconomic and biogeographical contexts, and create usable tools for land managers, users, planners and policy makers. The project is anchored in, and integrated through, 11 location-based cases for co-creation, and in a high-level multiplier cluster to identify challenges and impacts at EU and Global levels. Outputs include recommendations of co-designed and tested interventions to unlock behavioural, structural and procedural changes to achieve identified land use strategies; and a toolkit to support land use planners in enacting these interventions, including knowledge training, a planning dashboard and simulation tools, and methods for engaging citizens and land managers in behaviour change.

Provider: Ministerstvo školství mládeže a tělovýchovy
Another participant in the project: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: ACTRIS, long-term air quality monitoring and research, atmospheric aerosols, global climate change
Annotation of project:
A goal of this project is development of the ACTRIS-CZ research infrastructure as a unique platform for research and monitoring of the background air quality in the Czech Republic and Central Europe. ACTRIS-CZ will contribute to essential improvement of knowledge level in problems of air quality and climate change. The RI represents a national node of the existing ACTRIS RI established within EU 7th Framework Programme INFRA-2010-1-1.1.16 and currently followed-up within ACTRIS-2 under Horizon 2020. Moreover, the ACTRIS RI has been selected on the ESFRI roadmap 2016. Essential is the coordination with the ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) activities. Actually, the Czech Republic is one of the first European countries where the ACTRIS and ICOS activities are coordinated at the same site. The RI is closely connected to capacities of the accredited laboratories of two partners (CHMI and RECETOX). The RI provides an access to the RI equipment. The user community is also entitled to an access to various data sets and products including standard operation procedures, calibration results, data protocols, and support to environmental policies. ACTRIS-CZ users include the individual researchers or students, organizations and institutions as well as general public. The development is planned both in line with the long-term goals of international ACTRIS and within the national consortium. A significant enhancement is planned in research of the surface-atmosphere exchanges of aerosols and associated chemicals. More attention will be paid to the monitoring and research on the aerosol optical properties having influence on the climate issues. The long-term development of aerosol measurements within 10 years will continue with on-line monitoring and chemical analysis of aerosol source tracers and precursors of secondary aerosols.

Provider: Ministerstvo školství mládeže a tělovýchovy
Recipient: Ústav výzkumu globální změny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Keywords: climate change and modelling; ecological physiology and metabolomics; green house gases; remote sensing
Annotation of project:
The main goal of the research infrastructure (RI) CzeCOS is to enable open access to the entire scientific community, to provide research services to external users, and to facilitate knowledge transfer (training and education of students, PhD students, postdocs, researchers and other experts) in the field of long-term sophisticated research on global change (GC) impacts on terrestrial ecosystems in the Czech Republic (CZ) and Central Europe. Particular aims are (1) to form a national complement to the existing ESFRI infrastructures ICOS, AnaEE, and EUFAR, (2) to provide unique facilities for (i) long-term impact studies on effects of environmental factors on plants/ecosystems, (ii) operation of atmospheric and ecosystem stations for observational research and quantification of greenhouse gas fluxes, (iii) physiological research, (iv) metabolomic and isotope investigation and (v) flying laboratory of process imaging; (3) to significantly contribute to the global network of GC research; (4) to represent a unique platform for a broad national and international interdisciplinary collaboration. RI comprises a unique set of facilities for the research of GC impacts on ecosystems, study of adaptation mechanisms and the development of mitigation measures. Expected innovations are prediction of future stability of different ecosystems, identification of potential risks and producing the adaptation measures, identification of crop cultivars with increased tolerance to stressors, preparation of vegetation indices and thematic maps applicable in landscape planning, etc. The aim of the RI is fully in compliance with the National priorities for oriented research, experimental development and innovations (R&D&I) determined as a certain and concrete object of the state and public interest, which combines a long-term goals and multi-field focus, is applicable in the whole society and desirable (a climatic change is specified explicitly as a priority area).