6 years KLIMAPS-JKI: database on climate change and agriculture turns out to be a major success

Abstract

This short communication presents KLIMAPS-JKI—the successful free German online database for climate change (Klimawandel, plant protection (PflanzenSchutz) and more. The history of the database is described as well as the urgency to provide understandable information for the German public in their own language about new scientific knowledge and developments concerning the impacts of climate change on agriculture that fit their needs. A short introduction is given how KLIMAPS-JKI works and how authors can quite simply publish their scientific information worldwide directly online and also allow new users and authors a plain entry. Users have the choice: using the free text search in the basic search mode similar like Google or combine catchwords from the areas: areas “factors of climate change”, “crop”, “pest”, “plant protection method”, “interactions”, “beneficial organisms”, “soil”, “features” by clicking the advanced search tab. A total of 25,000–40,000 accesses to the database KLIMAPS-JKI are registered monthly. KLIMAPS-JKI is online under http://klimaps.jki.bund.de since 2010 (important remark: JKI domain will be changed over the course of the year 2016. Then KLIMAPS-JKI is online under: http://klimaps.julius-kuehn.de).