Abstract
Pasture and forage production occupies a large part of the utilized agricultural area in Portugal, a country prone to the effects of climate change. This study aims at evaluating the impacts of climate change on forage irrigation requirements and at defining and assessing different adaptation measures. A second objective focuses on evaluating the impacts on water deficit of rainfed forages. This study was performed in a Lusitano horse stud farm located in Azambuja Municipality, Portugal. The climate change impacts on the crop irrigation requirements and crop water deficit were simulated using the soil water balance model, ISAREG. The reference period considered was 1971–2000 and the climate scenarios were the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 (2071–2100). The results show that the adaptation measure aiming at maximum production (several cuts) will increase the irrigation requirements in the different climate change scenarios between 38.4% and 67.1%. The adaptation measure aiming at reducing the water consumption (only one cut) will lead to a reduction in irrigation requirements in the different climate change scenarios, ranging between −31.1% and −64.0%. In rainfed conditions, the water deficit is substantially aggravated in the climate change scenarios.
Highlights
A large part of Portugal is under Mediterranean conditions, characterized by rainy winters and hot dry summers
climate change scenarios (CCSs), some alternative management practices can be adopted such as deficit irrigation strategies [35], This study aims to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the forage irrigation requirements the use of rescue or complement irrigation in situations of limited water availability, or the increase and toindefine and assess different adaptation measures concerning irrigation water management
The expected impacts of climate change on forage irrigation water consumption and on water deficit of rainfed forage were evaluated for a Lusitano horse stud farm located in a central region of Portugal under Mediterranean conditions
Summary
A large part of Portugal is under Mediterranean conditions, characterized by rainy winters and hot dry summers. Projected climate changes (CCs) for Portugal point to air temperature increase, precipitation decrease, especially during spring, and a higher risk for the occurrence of extreme events such as droughts [1,2,3,4,5,6]. These changes will have strong impacts on agricultural production and water resource management with water considered as the most important, yet vulnerable, resource in the Mediterranean region [7]. Negative impacts in pasture and forage production are expected, namely a reduction in forage productivity due to an increased water deficit [9], accentuating interannual climate
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