PASTORALP project: expected impacts of climate change on future distribution and development of alpine grasslands and wooded pastures

The climate conditions experienced by the Alps in the recent decades are highly increasing the vulnerability of high mountain grasslands (IPCC, 2014), in close link with the socio-economic changes affecting pastoral systems as a whole (Huber et al., 2013). As a consequence, we assist to an increasing encroachment of shrubs and trees in the former pastures (Targetti et al., 2010). Hereby, we present some preliminary results of the EU-LIFE project PASTORALP (2017-2022) on the analysis of climate change impacts on high altitude pastures located across the Western Alps.