Future climate change significantly alters interannual wheat yield variability over half of harvested areas

Abstract

Climate change affects the spatial and temporal distribution of crop yields, which can critically impair food security across scales. A number of previous studies have assessed the impact of climate change on mean crop yield and future food availability, but much less is known about potential future changes in interannual yield variability. Here, we evaluate future changes in relative interannual global wheat yield variability (the coefficient of variation (CV)) at 0.25° spatial resolution for two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). A multi-model ensemble of crop model emulators based on global process-based models is used to evaluate responses to changes in temperature, precipitation, and CO2. The results indicate that over 60% of harvested areas could experience significant changes in interannual yield variability under a high-emission scenario by the end of the 21st century (2066–2095). About 31% and 44% of harvested areas are projected to undergo significant reductions of relative yield variability under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. In turn, wheat yield is projected to become more unstable across 23% (RCP4.5) and 18% (RCP8.5) of global harvested areas—mostly in hot or low fertilizer input regions, including some of the major breadbasket countries. The major driver of increasing yield CV change is the increase in yield standard deviation, whereas declining yield CV is mostly caused by stronger increases in mean yield than in the standard deviation. Changes in temperature are the dominant cause of change in wheat yield CVs, having a greater influence than changes in precipitation in 53% and 72% of global harvested areas by the end of the century under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This research highlights the potential challenges posed by increased yield variability and the need for tailored regional adaptation strategies.

Interculturalidad, educación, ciencias, desarrollo y sociedad

“…El clima es uno de los factores más importantes para el desarrollo de los cultivos, y afecta su producción y rendimiento (Galindo, 2009;Carrasco, 2016;Benique, 2019;Villegas, 2021) pudiendo afectar gravemente la seguridad alimentaria en todas las escalas, pues afecta la distribución espacial y temporal de los rendimientos de los cultivos (Martins et al,2018;Liu et al, 2021); por lo que, para mantener su rendimiento, deben encontrarse dentro de los márgenes apropiados de temperatura y precipitaciones en sus diferentes Por otro lado, su proyección de rendimiento al 2029, tal como se ilustra en la figura 3, muestra una tendencia negativa, reduciéndose a 1.12t/ha. En el camu-camu, la variable determinante sobre su rendimiento, es la precipitación pluvial (tabla 2); lo cual refleja la necesidad hídrica propia de su fisiología y hábitat (Imán, 2001); aun cuando los requerimientos de precipitación pluvial son altos (2,500 a 4,000 mm/año) en suelos aluviales, su estrecha cercanía a fuentes de agua puede asegurar la mayor parte de sus requerimientos suministrados por el sustrato donde se desarrolla; sin embargo, en los suelos de altura, en los meses de menor precipitación o de veranos prolongados, la planta llega a presentar marchitez (Pinedo el al., 2001), situación a la que algunos clones como en el E3-F7, presenta cierta tolerancia a medida que crece y se desarrolla, pudiendo ser una alternativa a esta situación negativa (Aguirre el al.…”

A Predictive Study of the Redistribution of Some Bread Wheat Genotypes in Response to Climate Change in Egypt

“…Globally, climate change affects the spatial and temporal distribution of crop yields, which can critically impair food security [29]. However, the identification of high-yielding drought-tolerant genotypes remains a proficient approach to cope with climate challenges [30].…”

“…According to this, some regions will have both increases in rainfall and temperature, which is important to grow drought and high-temperature tolerant varieties. Liu et al [29] indicated that over 60% of harvested areas could experience significant changes in interannual yield variability under a high-emission scenario by the end of the 21st century (2066-2095). The results from several studies, such as [29,31,32], have indicated substantial changes in interannual yield variability as a result of climate change, and that the sign and magnitude of change varied by production region.…”

“…Liu et al [29] indicated that over 60% of harvested areas could experience significant changes in interannual yield variability under a high-emission scenario by the end of the 21st century (2066-2095). The results from several studies, such as [29,31,32], have indicated substantial changes in interannual yield variability as a result of climate change, and that the sign and magnitude of change varied by production region. Zhu et al [33] analyzed subnational wheat yield shocks across Europe during the last four decades and found that the attribution analysis revealed that 32% of the wheat yield shocks were mainly driven by water limitation, making it the leading climate driver.…”

AsiaRiceYield4km: Seasonal Rice Yield in Asia from 1995 to 2015

“…Previous global-scale crop yield datasets including Harvester Area and Yields of 175 crops (M3Crops) (Monfreda et al, 2008), Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM) (You and Wood, 2006;Yu et al, 2020), Global Dataset of Historical Yields of Major Crops (GDHY) (Iizumi et al, 2014;Iizumi and Sakai, 2020), and Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) phase 1 (Müller et al, 2019), have 60 been produced and widely used in many studies (Folberth et al, 2020;Kaltenegger and Winiwarter, 2020;Iizumi et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2021b). However, due to the different research goals and technical restrictions, their spatial resolutions are relatively coarser (~10km for M3Crops and SPAM; ~55km for GDHY and GGCMI phase 1) and temporal resolutions are mostly annual (Laborte et al, 2017).…”