Climate–crop yield relationships at provincial scales in China and the impacts of recent climate trends

Abstract

Understanding climate-yield relationships and the impacts of recent climate trends on crop productivity on a large scale is an important step in predicting regional agricultural production. In this study we investigated climate-crop relationships, recent trends in seasonal climate (maximum and minimum temperatures, diurnal temperature range and precipitation) and their impacts on the yields of major crops (i.e. rice, wheat, maize and soybean) at provincial scales throughout China over the last few decades. We found that major crop yields were significantly related to growing season climate in the main production regions of China, and that growing season temperature had a generally significant warming trend. Due to the trends in growing season climate, total rice production in China was estimated to have increased by 3. , respectively, during 1979-2002. The warming trend increased rice yield in northeast China and soybean in north and northeast China; however, it decreased maize yield in 7 provinces (autonomous region or municipality) and wheat yield in 3 provinces. Our analysis presents the general response patterns of regional agricultural productivity to seasonal climate variability and change over the last few decades. Crop response mechanisms to local seasonal climate change (and variability) need further investigation to better understand the patterns and predict future consequences of climate change and variability on regional agricultural production.

Climate trends and impacts on crop production in the Koshi River basin of Nepal

“…The crop production data are available only at a district level, and this restricted us to account for the variation of crop seasons within a district, variation of threshold temperature for different elevations and separation of irrigated and rain-fed areas. However, previous studies have shown that even such aggregated data (e.g., at district or country level) can be sufficient to establish climate-crop yield relationships and to assess the impact of climate trends on crop production (e.g., 2008, 2011Tao et al 2008). The relatively weaker relationship observed between crop yield and precipitation, particularly for rice, is attributed to the impact of irrigation.…”

“…Potential impacts of climate change on crop production have received immense attention over the last decades (e.g., Parry et al 2004;Tao et al 2008). Understanding the relationship between climate and crop yield is fundamental to identify possible impacts of future climate and to develop adaptation measures.…”

“…In the developing countries where subsistence farming is dominant, the impact of climate change is often locally specific and hard to predict (Morton 2007). The relationships between climate and crop yields are generally scale dependent (Tao et al 2008). Therefore, examining the nature of the relationships on a finer spatial scale is essential to properly assess the impacts of climate change and to instigate suitable adaptation measures.…”

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

“…The NCP could be one of most vulnerable regions to climate change due to increasing temperature and water-related challenges (Tao et al, 2003a,b;Xiong et al, 2007;Mo et al, 2009). Maize is most vulnerable to climate variability and change among the staple crops in the NCP (Tao et al, 2004(Tao et al, , 2008b. For example, in the last several decades, maize yields were significantly correlated to seasonal precipitation in Shandong and Hebei provinces (Tao et al, 2008b); maize yields in Henan province decreased significantly by 16% during the El Niño phase, in comparison to the neutral phase (Tao et al, 2004).…”

Performance of Temperature-Related Weather Index for Agricultural Insurance of Three Main Crops in China

“…With ongoing climate change, more frequent and intense extreme-temperature events will become a major challenge to crop production (Wang et al 2014;Zhang et al 2014a, b;Chen et al 2016). More attention has been given to the meteorological causes of crop failure and effects of agro-meteorological hazards (Challinor et al 2005;Lobell and Field 2007;Tao et al 2008Tao et al , 2013Zhang et al 2014aZhang et al , b, 2016, but very few studies have focused on how to reduce corresponding economic losses from agro-meteorological hazards, especially in China.…”