THE AGRO-ECOLOGICAL POTENTIAL OF HUNGARY AND ITS PROSPECTIVE DEVELOPMENT DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

The climate change is one of the most relevant challenges that agriculture is facing in Hungary and all over the World. It is very difficult to express the agriculture related effects of the climate change in numbers and figures, since the atmosphere-soil-plant system is very complex. A crop simulation model was used for exploring the prospective effects of climate change on the agro-ecological potential of Hungary. The model was linked to a detailed meteorological and soil database of Hungary to provide the required input data. Simulations first employing measured meteorological data then combining them with a climate change scenario were used to determine the present and the prospective agro-ecological potential of Hungary. The simulation results indicate that the Hungarian agriculture can not avoid the effects of climate change, and unfortunately the majority of these effects would be negative. The yields of the spring crops will prospectively decrease while higher yields might be expected for the autumn crops. The amount of N-based green house gases emitted from the soil will prospectively increase because of the changes in the annual distribution of precipitation. On the basis of the simulation results the role of the autumn crops is likely to become more significant in Hungary. Another alternative for the Hungarian agriculture is to find new crops maybe species of Mediterranean origin that could be profitably grown here.