Abstract
Global warming has resulted in increasingly frequent and severe drought and/or precipitation events. Severe drought limits crop water availability and impacts agricultural productivity and socioeconomic development. To quantify drought-induced yield loss during the main crop stages in Liaoning province, China, aspects of drought episodes (magnitude, duration, and frequency) were investigated during the period 1960–2015 using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), respectively. Then the relationship between the SPI/SPEI and the standardized yield residuals series (SYRS), and the drought-induced yield loss were analyzed for maize, rice, sorghum, soybean, and millet. Liaoning underwent a province-wide increase in temperature, reduced precipitation, and reduced reference crop evapotranspiration. As expected, Liaoning experienced province-wide meteorological drying trends during the main crop growth stages, while the drought frequency, duration, and magnitude were not as serious as revealed by using the SPI. As compared to the SPI, the SPEI considering potential evapotranspiration explained 39%–78% yield variability of SYRS and evaluated the drought-induced yield loss more accurately. The increased drought frequency mainly affected the rain-fed crops (maize, sorghum, soybean, and millet), while it did not reduce irrigated rice production. No major impact was exerted on the rain-fed crops caused by mild drought. However, severe drought (SPEI < −1.0) markedly reduced yield performance, in particular at the anthesis-silking stage for maize, the jointing-booting stage for sorghum, the flowering-podding stage for soybean, and the sowing-milking stage for millet. It is concluded that the SPEI is a more useful measure for the identification of drought episodes and the assessment of drought impact on agricultural production in Liaoning province.
Highlights
The global climate has undergone significant and unprecedented changes during the past 100 years
Our results indicated that, compared to the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) disregarded the effect of the reduced ET0 and warming weather on drought conditions, which would result in inaccurate estimation of the drought-induced yield loss in Liaoning province
We provide an overall assessment of drought episodes using the SPI and SPEI during the period from 1960 to 2015 for Liaoning province
Summary
The global climate has undergone significant and unprecedented changes during the past 100 years. There is increasing evidence that global warming has resulted in increasingly frequent and severe drought and/or precipitation events [1]. Many areas of the world still suffer from drought-induced crop failure and water shortage problems, in rainfed agriculture regions [4,5]. Liaoning province is located in East Asia’s monsoon region and has one of the largest climate change rates in the world [6]. Drought is a major problem in this area, which has been responsible for great losses of regional agricultural production. Liaoning has experienced an unprecedented severity in the intensity, extent, and duration of extreme events (e.g., drought) [7,8]. It is imperative to quantify the drought risk and its drought impact on main crop yields, which benefit farmers by mitigating or adapting to drought-induced impact on agricultural systems
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