Assessing the impact of future climate change on wheat production inHuang-Huai-Hai Plain in China based on GIS and crop model

摘要

The climate is changing due to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases. If concentrations continue to increase, climate models project climate change in this century, with significant impacts on many human sectors, and particularly agriculture. Agriculture is a fundamental production sector for society, especially for large population countries such as China. Wheat is the second most important crop in China. Therefore, using climate change projections and crop models in order to understand the impacts of climate change on Chinese agriculture, especially on winter wheat, is extremely helpful to policy makers and international agencies. CERES-Wheat, a dynamic process crop growth model, will be calibrated and validated for current production at ten sites in the major winter wheat-growing region of China-Yellow Huai-Hai plain. Using two Global Climate Models, it will then be used to simulate production changes under IPCC SRES A2 and B2 climate change scenarios. Simulations will consider impacts for rainfed and irrigated winter wheat, with and without CO2 fertilization. Simulation results indicated the possibility of significant impacts of climate change on winter wheat production in this region, with marked differences between rainfed and irrigated production. In conclusion, this exercise successfully tested the applicability of standard climate change impact assessment methodology to an important production region of China.