Increased crop failure due to climate change: assessing adaptation options using models and socio-economic data for wheat in China

Abstract

Tools for projecting crop productivity under a range of conditions, and assessing adaptation options, are an important part of the endeavour to prioritize investment in adaptation. We present ensemble projections of crop productivity that account for biophysical processes, inherent uncertainty and adaptation, using spring wheat in Northeast China as a case study. A parallel 'vulnerability index' approach uses quantitative socio-economic data to account for autonomous farmer adaptation.The simulations show crop failure rates increasing under climate change, due to increasing extremes of both heat and water stress. Crop failure rates increase with mean temperature, with increases in maximum failure rates being greater than those in median failure rates. The results suggest that significant adaptation is possible through either socio-economic measures such as greater investment, or biophysical measures such as drought or heat tolerance in crops. The results also show that adaptation becomes increasingly necessitated as mean temperature and the associated number of extremes rise. The results, and the limitations of this study, also suggest directions for research for linking climate and crop models, socio-economic analyses and crop variety trial data in order to prioritize options such as capacity building, plant breeding and biotechnology.

Adaptive Effectiveness of Irrigated Area Expansion in Mitigating the Impacts of Climate Change on Crop Yields in Northern China

“…The model output in our study is not consistent with earlier assessments, which investigated the potential adaptive effects of expanding irrigation using process-based models by assuming different irrigation schemes [29] or assuming no water stress [8]. In theory, there is significant potential for improving irrigation to mitigate the harmful impacts of both of heat and drought on crops [30].…”

“…Using process-based crop model and associated assumptions, some studies have evaluated the adaptation effectiveness of potential irrigation in facing climate change risks on Chinese agriculture. For example, assuming no crop water stress was predicted to mitigate 5-15% of the yield reduction in China under future climate scenarios [8,9]. However, the assumption of no water stress is unrealistic and difficult to link with the government plan.…”

Vulnerability of Maize Yields to Droughts in Uganda

“…The rain-fed character of agriculture in Africa presents significant challenges [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], with small-scale farmers responsible for most agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and least equipped to adapt [10,11]. The need for new integrative approaches that monitor resilience, adaptive capacity, vulnerability and the sensitivity of African agriculture to droughts is urgent [12,13] because the effects of droughts will be reflected in the degree of vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of cropping systems [12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Climate change impacts on crop yield: Evidence from China

“…To overcome the disadvantage, some efforts have been made to consider both variables in these models (Challinor et al, 2010;Ye et al, 2013). The impacts estimated from these models depend on specific model structures and parameter values besides climate projections (Asseng et al, 2013;Liu and Tao, 2012;Osborne et al, 2013).…”