Modelling the impacts of weather and climate variability on crop productivity over a large area: A new process-based model development, optimization, and uncertainties analysis

Adaptation of maize production to climate change in North China Plain: Quantify the relative contributions of adaptation options

“…Since the mechanisms and the extent of the effects of high stress on crop development and productivity still remain uncertain, more controlled-environment and field observation experiments are needed to understand the processes and mechanisms of crop heat stress tolerance. In crop modelling studies, the robustness of crop models in capturing the impacts of weather extremes, intra-seasonal variability and climate thresholds is becoming increasingly important (e.g., Challinor et al, 2005;Porter and Semenov, 2005;Tao et al, 2009a). Finally, to accurately understand impacts and develop effective adaptation strategies, adaptation should be seen as integrated part of the models used to simulate crop yields, farmers' income and other indicators related to agricultural performance.…”

“…The two sets of variety thermal parameters were selected from the optimal 60 sets of parameters of MCWLA in simulating the interannual variability of maize phenology and productivity in the NCP. The optimal 60 sets of parameters were derived by applying the Bayesian probability inversion and a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique to the MCWLA based on the maize phenology and yield records from 1995 to 2002 in the NCP (Tao et al, 2009a). According to Tao et al (2009a), the 97.5% highprobability intervals for Tb, To, Tm and thermal time requirement from planting to maturity in the NCP are from 7.9 to 10.0 • C, 27.7 to 30.9 • C, 31.1 to 35.9 • C, and 1590.4 to 1788.7 degree-days, respectively.…”

“…Furthermore, a full assessment of the climate change impacts on agricultural production should take comprehensively into account available adaptation strategies (Reidsma et al, 2010), and account for the uncertainties from many physical, biological, and social-economic processes (Tubiello et al, 2007;Tao et al, 2009a). Modelling studies can contribute to policy by providing the science to underpin strategic decisions.…”

Climate change impacts on crop yield: Evidence from China

“…A widely applied approach to estimating climate change impact on crop yield is crop simulation modeling (e.g., Lin et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2010;Tao et al, 2009;Xiong et al, 2012;Xiong et al, 2007;Zhang et al, 2013), where key socio-economic factors other than climate variables in crop production are typically out of consideration (Challinor et al, 2009). …”

Heat stress impacts on wheat growth and yield were reduced in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain of China in the past three decades

“…Recently, impacts of heat stress on crop growth and yields have also been estimated by crop simulation models (Challinor et al, 2005;Asseng et al, 2011Asseng et al, , 2015Tao and Zhang, 2013) and statistical approaches (Lobell et al, 2012;Gourdji et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2014). However, modeling crop response to extreme events like heat waves is still in its infancy so far, although it is receiving increasing levels of attention and is now a particular research focus for crop modeling (Challinor et al, 2005;Tao et al, 2009;Rötter et al, 2011;Lobell et al, 2012). The statistical modeling approaches are often limited by the lack of detailed crop growth and yield data.…”