44% of steep slope cropland in Europe vulnerable to drought

Abstract

Steep-slope cropland plays a vital role in food production, economic development, ecosystem diversity, and European cultural heritage. However, these systems are susceptible to extreme weather events. The 2022 summer drought significantly impacted European agriculture, but the specific effects on steep-slope crops remain uncertain. Clarifying this is essential for comprehending similar future events and for implementing effective water management strategies to ensure the sustainability of steep-slope agriculture and associated ecosystem services. This study quantitatively analyzes the spatial distribution of twelve major European steep-slope (>12%) crops and assesses agricultural drought severity during the 2022 events using open-access spatial data. The satellite-based Vegetation Health Index (VHI) is utilized to identify critical hotspots. Results show that olive grove is the most widespread crop in steep slope agriculture (34% of total area), followed by wheat (24%), maize (16%), and vineyard (11%). Almost half of the steep-slope agriculture in Europe suffered drought during summer 2022. Vineyards were hardest affected at 79%, primarily in northern Portugal, northern Spain, southern France, and central Italy. Sunflowers followed at 62%, mainly in Spain, central Italy, southern France, and northern Romania. Olive groves ranked third at 59%, with the most impact in northern Portugal, southern and central Spain, and southern Italy. Maize was also significantly affected at 54%. In this paper, we therefore highlight the need to increase steep-slope agriculture resilience by improving water management and promoting sustainable land practices.

Keywords

Drought / Steep slope cropland / Europe / Sustainability

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Wendi Wang: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Eugenio Straffelini: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Paolo Tarolli: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This study was carried out within the Agritech National Research Center and received funding from the European Union Next-GenerationEU (PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR) – MISSIONE 4 COMPONENTE 2, INVESTIMENTO 1.4 – D.D. 1032 17/06/2022, CN00000022). This manuscript reflects only the authors’ views and opinions, neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be considered responsible for them. Wendi Wang would like to acknowledge the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for supporting living expenses during PhD study period.

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