CLIMASTER: climatic change, farming systems, natural resources and regional development

CLIMASTER, is a comprehensive program built in a participative way, associating researchers, farmer organisations and water management offices, to tackle the issue of the interaction between the climatic change, the farming systems, the natural resources and the regional development. It concerns the 4 administrative regions of West France, Brittany, Basse Normandie, Poitou-Charentes and Pays de Loire, that present quite specific characteristics : Importance of coastal issues, large areas of wetlands; farming systems mainly devoted to animal breeding; water resources threatened by scarcity and anthropic impacts, environmental concerns. Although the interest of scientists on climatic changes focused rarely on this western region, it appears that farmers and water and natural resource managers in these regions have already to account for some impact of climatic changes, especially those linked to extreme conditions. The project is organised in 4 tasks. The first one attempts to assess the regional climatic changes (trend, increase of variability and extreme events). The second one analyses the way farmers account for climatic changes in their practices. The 3rd one analyses the impact of climatic changes on the natural resources, mainly quantitative and qualitative water resources, but also biodiversity. The last one analyses the position of farmers from the sociological and psycho-sociological perspectives. A series of cross seminars will be organised, focusing on some environmental objects, like wetlands, coastal issues, and the construction of management scenarios. One of the interests is to develop a shared perspective on the impact of climate changes between scientists, different stakeholders and local people. More than 10 research teams and 15 structures devoted to territorial development and farmer advising are involved in the project. The first steps of the project are described.