Abstract
The multiple cropping practice is essential to agriculture because it has been shown to significantly increase the grain yield and promote agricultural economic development. In this study, potential multiple cropping systems in China are calculated based on meteorological observation data by using the Agricultural Ecology Zone (AEZ) model. Following this, the changes in the potential cropping systems in response to climate change between the 1960s and the 2010s were subsequently analyzed. The results indicate that the changes of potential multiple cropping systems show tremendous heterogeneity in respect to the spatial pattern in China. A key finding is that the magnitude of change of the potential cropping systems showed a pattern of increase both from northern China to southern China and from western China to eastern China. Furthermore, the area found to be suitable only for single cropping decreased, while the area suitable for triple cropping increased significantly from the 1960s to the 2000s. During the studied period, the potential multiple cropping index (PMCI) gap between rain-fed and irrigated scenarios increased from 18% to 24%, which indicated noticeable growth of water supply limitations under the rain-fed scenario. The most significant finding of this research was that from the 1960s to the 2000s climate change had led to a significant increase of PMCI by 13% under irrigated scenario and 7% under rain-fed scenario across the whole of China. Furthermore, the growth of the annual mean temperature is identified as the main reason underlying the increase of PMCI. It has also been noticed that across China the changes of potential multiple cropping systems under climate change were different from region to region.
Highlights
Multiple cropping is a general cropping practice which involves growing two or more crops on the same field in a given year
The calculation method for the potential multiple cropping systems were derived from the Global Agro-Ecological Zones Model (AEZ) which was developed in the 1970s, and updated in 2010 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) [29,30,31,32,33]
Comparison and Verification To verify the accuracy of the calculated results, the calculated potential multiple cropping system in 2000 was compared with the actual result from remote sensing monitoring based on MODIS data [11]
Summary
Multiple cropping is a general cropping practice which involves growing two or more crops on the same field in a given year It is one of the most effective ways to increase grain yield and to promote agricultural economic development. Due to environmental limitations, increased food production is unlikely to be achieved from farmland expansion in many regions [3] In this situation, multiple cropping is an effective method for improving crop productivity as it is an efficient use of natural resources (i.e. land, light, heat and so on) and human resources. Multiple cropping is an effective method for improving crop productivity as it is an efficient use of natural resources (i.e. land, light, heat and so on) and human resources This practice helps to alleviate competition for land use between food production and economic crops
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