Effects of extreme temperature on China’s tea production

Abstract

The production of tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze), the world’s second most consumed beverage, is susceptible to extreme weather events. However, our understanding about the impacts of extreme temperatures and climate change on tea yields remains fairly limited. Here we quantify the historical and predict future fluctuations in tea yield caused by extreme temperatures in China, the largest tea producing country. We found that both heat and cold extremes were associated with significantly reduced tea yields. In the present climate, dominating cold extremes influence more than half of China’s tea production, with a maximum of 56.3% reduced annual production. In the near future, we predict positive net impacts of climate change on tea yield in all study regions at both the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming levels. Climate warming may diminish the negative impacts of cold extremes to 14%, especially at the current most affected northern tea growing regions (>28° N). However, new areas of yield reduction by intensified heat extremes will emerge, up to 14%–26% yield losses estimated at the Yangtze River (∼30° N) and southern China (<∼25° N) regions. Although the Paris Agreement targets limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, we expect up to 11%–24% heat-induced yield loss in Chongqing, Hunan, Anhui, and Zhejiang. Increasing heat extremes pose the most challenging changes for tea production in China. Therefore, addressing the regional difference of extreme temperature shifts is urgent for adapting tea production to climate change.

Influence of multi-timescale precipitation indices on primary tea production in Baoshan, Yunnan, China

“…Tea is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, second only to water [1][2][3], and contributes to dietary patterns that could potentially be more sustainable and healthier [4]. As the first country in the world to drink and grow tea, China is now the world's largest tea-producing country, with an output of 2.8 million tons annually, accounting for more than 43% of total global tea production and 60% of the global tea plantation area [5,6]. With the largest area, second largest production, and third largest output value in China [7], the Yunnan tea industry has become an important economic pillar of more than 77% of counties (cities) in Yunnan Province.…”

“…The tea industry provides the main income source for millions of mountain farmers, is an important tax revenue source for local governments, and also plays a pivotal role in the sustainable development of rural areas [8]. Since tea plant cultivation and collection are very sensitive to extreme climate events [6], understanding the influence of extreme climate events on tea production is, therefore, crucial in planning adaptation activities and regional development.…”

“…Similarly, the hotter and wetter climate will have a detrimental effect on Sri Lankan tea production, and a decline of 12% in annual tea production is predicted by mid-century [13]. In China, dominating cold extremes influence more than half of tea production in the present climate, with a maximum of 56.3% reduced annual yield [6]. In the future at both the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming levels, intensified heat extremes will lead to losses (up to 14%-26% tea yield) estimated at the Yangtze River (∼30°N) and southern China (<∼25°N) regions [6].…”

“…In China, dominating cold extremes influence more than half of tea production in the present climate, with a maximum of 56.3% reduced annual yield [6]. In the future at both the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming levels, intensified heat extremes will lead to losses (up to 14%-26% tea yield) estimated at the Yangtze River (∼30°N) and southern China (<∼25°N) regions [6].…”

“…As mentioned above, the response of primary tea production to temperature has received considerable attention [2,3,6,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], resulting in abundant and influential conclusions. By comparison, the impact of precipitation on tea production is less well understood, with very few studies exploring the impact of multitimescale precipitation indices (including extreme precipitation) on tea production, or investigating the effect of precipitation on primary processing of different types of tea 9,10 .…”