INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

HORIZONT EUROPE

Clima Pannonia

Building climate resilience via large scale uptake of systemic solutions in agricultural ecosystems in the Pannonian region - ClimaPannonia

About the project

The Pannonian biogeographical region (PBR) is one of the 11 biogeographical regions defined by the European Environment Agency (EEA). This area is characterized by a large lowland alluvial basin, intersected in the north-south direction by two major rivers – the Danube and the Tisza. Once an ancient inland sea, this basin is today almost entirely surrounded by low hills and mountains. In modern times, the majority of its territory (71.3%) is covered by agricultural land, making it second in Europe in terms of agricultural land share, but first in productivity.

In recent years, the PBR has been facing extreme weather conditions, including increasingly frequent, intense, and long-lasting droughts, accompanied by storms that reached the level of so-called “supercell storms” during the summer of 2023.

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the European Union (EU) is taking decisive steps in responding to the consequences of climate change in the PBR. The ClimaPannonia project is designed to tackle the specific adaptation challenges in this area.

Objectives

The aim of the project is the development, testing, and validation of practical systemic solutions that can be applied at various levels – from local to regional, national, and even transnational – in order to increase the resilience of the agricultural sector to climate change. The project identifies 4 key pillars in the agricultural sector: organic crop production, water management, agroforestry systems, and livestock production.

Watch the project video

Consortium

The project is led by the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad, in cooperation with 24 institutions from 10 European countries: Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland. A total of around 150 researchers of various profiles participate in the project. Experiments take place at 4 locations in two countries (Serbia and Hungary), while replications are repeated in three more countries (Romania, the Czech Republic, and Croatia).