Yield Response of Mediterranean Rangelands under a Changing Climate

Abstract Understanding the Mediterranean rangelands degradation trends is a key element of mitigating their vulnerability and enhancing their resilience. Climate change and its inherent effects on mean temperature and the precipitation variability can regulate the magnitude, frequency and duration of droughts and aridity with a profound effect on ecosystem productivity. Here we investigate the effects of climate change to project the development of vegetation in the Mediterranean rangelands by (i) estimating the relative Standardized Precipitation Index and a modification of the United Nations Environment Programme Aridity Index to classify climate variability, and (ii) modelling vegetation response to climate using the Food and Agriculture Organisation crop–water production function. Climate model data are obtained from nine general circulation models under Relative Concentration Pathways 2.6 and 8.5 of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. After correcting climate model data for biases, results for two 40‐year future study periods are compared with the baseline period 1961–2000 within a domain that includes the European Mediterranean. We show that a gradual but robust increase of aridity and drought frequency is estimated for most of the Mediterranean region, impacting rangeland vegetation yields. Projected drought and aridity disturbances may well represent permanent shifts to a warmer and more frequently dry status. This alternative stability of climatic pressure lies outside the limits of ecosystem resilience and may indicate that in some cases vegetation will either adapt to the new conditions or be succeeded by more water‐stress tolerant species. Results raise concerns about the fate of the Mediterranean rangelands and the effectiveness of mitigation measures. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.