EU project ClimAurea launches to help European farmers prepare for a changing climate
The new Horizon Europe project brings together 13 partners from nine countries to explore how climate change will affect European agriculture and to develop and test practical tools with farmers to help them adapt.
ClimAurea, a new research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, officially started on 1 September 2026 and held its kick-off meeting in Ghent, Belgium, on 15–16 September. Over the next three years, the project will study how a changing climate will affect European farming and help farmers, advisors and policymakers prepare.
How will climate change affect what farmers can grow in the coming decades? Will today’s crops still be suitable for the same regions in 2050? And how can farmers prepare for more frequent droughts, floods and heatwaves? These are the questions at the heart of ClimAurea.
The project is coordinated by EV ILVO (Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) in Belgium, with scientific coordination by the University of the Aegean in Greece. It brings together research institutes, universities, farmer organisations and technology companies from across Europe.
“Climate change will affect agriculture differently from one place to another. By bringing together open geospatial data, Earth observation and climate and agricultural modelling, we can better understand what these changes could mean. Through ClimAurea, we want to make that knowledge useful to farmers, advisors and policymakers as they explore adaptation options and plan for the decades ahead.”
Theodoros Chalazas, ClimAurea Project Coordinator, EV ILVO
The ClimAurea consortium at the kick-off meeting in Ghent, 15–16 September 2026.
From climate data to practical adaptation
ClimAurea will look ahead to 2030, 2050 and 2100 to explore how changing temperatures, rainfall patterns and extreme events could affect crops, grasslands and livestock across Europe.
The project will look not only at what the future climate might be like, but at what these changes could mean in practice: whether certain crops may become less suitable for particular regions, how drought or flooding could affect production, and which changes in farming practices could help.
ClimAurea will bring this knowledge together in an interactive digital tool, a “digital twin” of European agriculture, allowing users to explore future climate scenarios and possible adaptation options. A multilingual, AI-powered advisory system will help make complex scientific information more accessible to farmers, agricultural advisors and other users.
Working with farmers across Europe
Because climate challenges differ between regions, ClimAurea will work directly with farmers and agricultural stakeholders in four regions facing very different pressures:
- Thessaly, Greece – flooding, drought and heatwaves
- West Flanders polders, Belgium – heatwaves, floods and drought
- Țara Călatei, Romania – drought and flooding in high-nature-value farmland
- Alentejo, Portugal – chronic drought and heat
About ClimAurea
ClimAurea is a Horizon Europe research project bringing together 13 partners from nine countries. The project is coordinated by EV ILVO, Belgium, with scientific coordination by the University of the Aegean, Greece. It runs for 36 months, from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2029, with EU funding of €4.94 million.
Through climate research, digital technologies and collaboration with agricultural communities, ClimAurea aims to provide practical knowledge and tools to support a more climate-resilient future for European agriculture.
Grant Agreement: 101286597
Website: climaurea.eu
LinkedIn: climaurea
Bluesky: climaurea.bsky.social
Facebook: ClimAurea
Instagram: climaurea
Media contacts
Project communication: Aleksandra Anđelković, Future Systems Hub – aandjelkovic@futuresystemshub.com
Project coordination: Theodoros Chalazas, EV ILVO – Theodoros.Chalazas@ilvo.vlaanderen.be