VULNERABILITY OF AGRICULTURE TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE NEW MEMBER STATES OF EUROPEAN UNION

• Main Author: Mária Fekete FARKASNÉ
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Social Sciences Research Society 2010-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies
• Online Access: http://www.sobiad.org/ejournals/journal_IJSS/arhieves/2010_1/03maria_fekete_farkasne1.pdf

During the last decade, as our Planet became more vulnerable, the demand for improved knowledge of environmental process and the impact of human activity on their dynamic increased. The debate over climate change has clearly entered a new phase that is focusing on what must be done related to mitigation and adaptation. It is there for clear how important agricultural land use change is for the global environment in all its varied components. Different factors, including demographic trends, economic growth and affluence, technology, agricultural and rural policies, institutional structure, social a ttitudes and values and other key driving forces, lead to changes in land use and land cover resulting in a range of impacts on yields, farm income, biodiversity, landscape identity water quality, flooding, greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion. As the impacts of climate change become more noticeable, international, national and local awareness of the need to prepare for, and respond to, the impacts of climate change has grown. In the face of increasing uncertainty of climat e variability, and socio-economic situation their effectiveness may be reduced significantly. In such a context, prediction of socio-economic trends and the environment changing in space and time is clearly impossible. Given these constraints, an alternative technique for analysis is required. This paper is focusing on the methodology issues of vulnerability analysis in agriculture with special attention on new member states of EU.