Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Land Use in Iran: The Spatial Fractional Multinomial Logit Modeling Approach

Abstract

This study assesses the effect of climate change’s variables on the land share of annual crop groups including cereals, legumes, vegetables, cucurbits, forages and industrial crops in Iran. We analyzed four climatic parameters—temperature, precipitation, wind speed and humidity. The study also estimates two spatial fractional multinomial logit models using agronomic and climate data from 336 counties for two periods, 2006–2007 and 2012–2013. Our results show that the crop groups responded to climate change and this response has increased over time. This increase is more obvious in temperature changes. For example, in 2006–2007, temperature changes only impacted legumes’ land share, while in 2012–2013 it impacted all types of crops except industrial crops. This is because changes in climate have accelerated in recent years and farmers are also more aware of these changes through observations, the media and other communication channels. It is expected that with continued climate changes in the future the agriculture sector’s response to these changes will include changing the land share of different crops, thus changing their production. Therefore, we recommend predicting farmers’ responses to climate change in various scenarios and providing the basics for necessary policies through a comparison of potential production levels and the nutritional needs of society in the future. Moreover, since this study only focuses on land allocations between annual crop groups, it is recommended that other studies be done which consider the effects of climate change on land allocations in other agricultural sub-sectors such as horticulture and livestock.