Regional disparities in the beneficial effects of rising CO2 concentrations on crop water productivity

Deryng, Delphine; Elliott, Joshua; Folberth, Christian; Müller, Christoph; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Boote, Kenneth J.; Conway, Declan; Ruane, Alex C.; Gerten, Dieter; Jones, James W.; Khabarov, Nikolay; Olin, Stefan; Schaphoff, Sibyll; Schmid, Erwin; Yang, Hong; Rosenzweig, Cynthia

doi:10.1038/nclimate2995

Cited by 230 publications

(165 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…15). Attainable yields of maize, a C4 crop, are not expected to be affected by increased [CO 2 ], although actual yields of all crops may be substantially enhanced in areas where water stress is limiting growth2527. Simulations from the ISI-MIP ensemble show enhancements of wheat and rice yield due to CO 2 fertilization ranging from 4 to 80% (Supplementary Table 3), illustrating the huge uncertainty in projections of CO 2 fertilization, however, direct comparison is complicated by the differing assumptions on nutrient availability and climate adaptation between the models (see Supplementary Note 3 and Supplementary Figs 16 and 17).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

et al. 2016

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Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

et al. 2016

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“…Significant increases of crop yield due to elevated levels of CO 2 have been reported in experiments for different crops (Kimball, 1983; Kimball et al, 2002) and most of the recent modeling studies simulate the effect of elevated CO 2 (Deryng et al, 2016). However, there is an ongoing debate about the extent of impacts of CO 2 fertilization on crop yields in observations and models (Long et al, 2006; Ainsworth et al, 2008), especially in Africa where few field observations are unavailable to validate and further improve the models.…”

Section: The Impact On Crop Yield and Potential For Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture in West Africa in the Twenty-First Century: Climate Change and Impacts Scenarios, and Potential for Adaptation

2016

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West Africa is known to be particularly vulnerable to climate change due to high climate variability, high reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and limited economic and institutional capacity to respond to climate variability and change. In this context, better knowledge of how climate will change in West Africa and how such changes will impact crop productivity is crucial to inform policies that may counteract the adverse effects. This review paper provides a comprehensive overview of climate change impacts on agriculture in West Africa based on the recent scientific literature. West Africa is nowadays experiencing a rapid climate change, characterized by a widespread warming, a recovery of the monsoonal precipitation, and an increase in the occurrence of climate extremes. The observed climate tendencies are also projected to continue in the twenty-first century under moderate and high emission scenarios, although large uncertainties still affect simulations of the future West African climate, especially regarding the summer precipitation. However, despite diverging future projections of the monsoonal rainfall, which is essential for rain-fed agriculture, a robust evidence of yield loss in West Africa emerges. This yield loss is mainly driven by increased mean temperature while potential wetter or drier conditions as well as elevated CO2 concentrations can modulate this effect. Potential for adaptation is illustrated for major crops in West Africa through a selection of studies based on process-based crop models to adjust cropping systems (change in varieties, sowing dates and density, irrigation, fertilizer management) to future climate. Results of the cited studies are crop and region specific and no clear conclusions can be made regarding the most effective adaptation options. Further efforts are needed to improve modeling of the monsoon system and to better quantify the uncertainty in its changes under a warmer climate, in the response of the crops to such changes and in the potential for adaptation.

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“…We decided on the high spatial resolution of 30 arcsec (approx. 1 km 2 at the Equator), since the demand for high-resolution global data is increasing in different applications (Deryng et al, 2016;Jägermeyr et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2007;Mauser et al, 2015;Rosenzweig et al, 2014) and the pixel size of approximately 1 km 2 is already close to the size of large fields (depending on the region) or an agglomeration of smaller irrigated fields. For Africa and Asia, the field size of 1 km 2 might be too large (Fritz et al, 2015), but usually, irrigated fields can be much bigger in size, since irrigation is often applied by large-scale farms.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A global approach to estimate irrigated areas – a comparison between different data and statistics

Meier

Zabel

Mauser

2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

161

113

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Abstract. Agriculture is the largest global consumer of water. Irrigated areas constitute 40 % of the total area used for agricultural production (FAO, 2014a) Information on their spatial distribution is highly relevant for regional water management and food security. Spatial information on irrigation is highly important for policy and decision makers, who are facing the transition towards more efficient sustainable agriculture. However, the mapping of irrigated areas still represents a challenge for land use classifications, and existing global data sets differ strongly in their results. The following study tests an existing irrigation map based on statistics and extends the irrigated area using ancillary data. The approach processes and analyzes multi-temporal normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) SPOT-VGT data and agricultural suitability data -both at a spatial resolution of 30 arcsec -incrementally in a multiple decision tree. It covers the period from 1999 to 2012. The results globally show a 18 % larger irrigated area than existing approaches based on statistical data. The largest differences compared to the official national statistics are found in Asia and particularly in China and India. The additional areas are mainly identified within already known irrigated regions where irrigation is more dense than previously estimated. The validation with global and regional products shows the large divergence of existing data sets with respect to size and distribution of irrigated areas caused by spatial resolution, the considered time period and the input data and assumption made.

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Regional disparities in the beneficial effects of rising CO2 concentrations on crop water productivity

Cited by 230 publications

References 60 publications

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

Agriculture in West Africa in the Twenty-First Century: Climate Change and Impacts Scenarios, and Potential for Adaptation

A global approach to estimate irrigated areas – a comparison between different data and statistics

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