European researchers build drought warning tools for Mediterranean vineyards

A European research project is developing tools to anticipate droughts so wine producers can adjust vineyard practices before water shortages become acute, an effort researchers say could help one of the Mediterranean’s most climate-exposed agricultural sectors adapt to hotter and drier conditions.

The project, called “Germ of Life: climate challenges for vineyards and other sectors of the territory,” brings together universities, public institutions and private technology companies from several Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, Italy, North Macedonia, France, Greece and Spain. In Catalonia, the work is centered on the Rovira i Virgili University, or URV, with meteorological data supplied by the Meteorological Service of Catalonia.

Researchers involved in the initiative are combining weather records with information from Europe’s Copernicus Earth observation program and Sentinel satellite imagery. The goal is to build software that can monitor conditions and detect drought risk early enough for growers and other users to respond in practical ways.

Enric Aguilar, director of URV’s university research institute on sustainability, climate change and energy transition, said the project is testing a methodology first developed in an earlier phase and is now being applied with multiple information sources, including regional meteorological data. In Catalonia, he said, the team chose viticulture because climate change is already having a significant effect on vineyards.

The broader European project covers more than one economic sector, but the Catalan case study focuses on wine grapes. That reflects the pressure facing vineyards across much of the Mediterranean, where rising temperatures and more frequent dry periods are changing growing cycles and limiting water availability.

Thanos Argiriou of the University of Patras in Greece is the European coordinator of the project. He said the aim is not only to forecast droughts, but also to present the information in a way non-specialists can understand and use. The intention, he said, is to provide information that is simplified but still accurate enough to help people whose work is affected by drought.

For vineyard managers, that could mean making decisions well before the growing season reaches a critical point. Researchers involved in the project said possible measures include changing the orientation of vine rows to reduce heat exposure, using different grape varieties, lowering the number of plants per hectare so each vine has better access to soil moisture, or moving cultivation to higher elevations where temperatures may be less severe.

Joan Miquel Canals, a professor in URV’s Faculty of Enology and a researcher on the project, said climate change is already creating several problems for grape growers in Catalonia. In different parts of the region this year, he said, the grape harvest began weeks earlier than in previous years. In some places, he added, grapes now have to be picked as much as a month earlier than they were a couple of decades ago.

That shift matters because grapes must be harvested at a specific stage of ripeness. According to Canals, earlier harvests may still allow sugar levels to rise, but they shorten the time available for the vine to develop secondary metabolites that influence aroma and color. As a result, the wine can change in ways producers do not necessarily want.

Canals said one line of research involves genetic and varietal adaptation, including grapes better suited to longer growing cycles and later ripening. That approach, he said, could help vines avoid the most intense summer heat. Other strategies under study involve vineyard layout. If rows run east to west, for example, the plants may receive stronger sun exposure than if they run north to south. Planting density also matters because it affects how much water each vine can draw from the soil.

The final goal, Canals said, is to keep producing wines of the same quality in a different climate context. Aguilar framed the challenge in terms of continuity for consumers and wine regions. When people buy a wine from a specific appellation, he said, they expect a familiar experience, even as growers are forced to change cultivation and production methods to match new climate conditions.

Project participants met earlier this week at URV to present the initiative and later visited the university’s Mas dels Frares facilities in Constantí, where several research lines are underway that could feed into the European effort. The site is used by URV’s Faculty of Enology and serves as a practical setting for testing how scientific findings could be applied in working vineyards.

The work also points to a wider economic concern. If drought forecasts become reliable enough to guide planting, vineyard design and varietal choices, they could influence where producers put money and how they protect output and wine quality over time. For the beverage industry, especially in Mediterranean wine regions, earlier warning of water stress could become an important tool for reducing losses and preserving the characteristics that define many established wines.

The researchers are not presenting the software as a complete answer to drought, but as a way to improve preparation. In regions where water scarcity is becoming more frequent, having earlier and clearer information may give growers more room to act before a dry season begins to damage yield, alter grape composition or force abrupt changes in harvest timing.