Climate change is causing new patterns in climatic conditions over the world, which are already affecting many aspects of our society.
Though being a global phenomenon, nowhere else in the world is climate change expected to have ecological, economic and social consequences as dramatic as those in the Mediterranean basin. Higher than-average projected changes in climate and shifting weather patterns endanger an extremely rich and intertwined biological diversity, which supports human activities such as farming. In this context, the agriculture sector in particular is especially threatened, as it is largely climate-driven and thus highly vulnerable to its variability.
The risk of crop failure and pest damage, as well as natural hazards such as heat waves, storms or floods, is likely to increase, requiring immediate action to be undertaken to adapt to this uncertain outlook.
The challenge is to develop tools to build more resilient, efficient and sustainable agriculture and food systems. To that end, the development of climate services to support decision-making and best practices in agriculture is essential.
That is why the aim of MED-GOLD is to translate state-of-the-art climate data and climate predictions — at the seasonal timescale and beyond — into easily accessible, valuable information for a wide range of end-users in the agriculture sector.
