Climate Change Trends and Impacts on California Agriculture: A Detailed Review

Tapan Pathak,Daniele Zaccaria,Mahesh Maskey,Jeffery Dahlberg,Khaled Bali,Faith Kearns

doi:10.3390/agronomy8030025

Abstract

California is a global leader in the agricultural sector and produces more than 400 types of commodities. The state produces over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. Despite being highly productive, current and future climate change poses many challenges to the agricultural sector. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge on historical and future trends in climate and their impacts on California agriculture. We present a synthesis of climate change impacts on California agriculture in the context of: (1) historic trends and projected changes in temperature, precipitation, snowpack, heat waves, drought, and flood events; and (2) consequent impacts on crop yields, chill hours, pests and diseases, and agricultural vulnerability to climate risks. Finally, we highlight important findings and directions for future research and implementation. The detailed review presented in this paper provides sufficient evidence that the climate in California has changed significantly and is expected to continue changing in the future, and justifies the urgency and importance of enhancing the adaptive capacity of agriculture and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Since agriculture in California is very diverse and each crop responds to climate differently, climate adaptation research should be locally focused along with effective stakeholder engagement and systematic outreach efforts for effective adoption and implementation. The expected readership of this paper includes local stakeholders, researchers, state and national agencies, and international communities interested in learning about climate change and California’s agriculture.

Highlights

California is the largest and most diverse agricultural state in the United States of America, with 77,500 farms comprising 5.7 million ha of pasture and rangeland and 3.8 million ha of irrigated cropland that generate an overall agricultural production value of $50.5 billion [1]
We have performed a detailed literature review to document the most current understanding on Californias climate change trends in terms of temperature, precipitation, snowpack, and extreme events such as heat waves, drought, and flooding, and their relative impacts on the state’s highly productive and diverse agricultural sector. This detailed review was obtained from credible sources such as the most recent reports from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [5], various state agency reports, and research articles focused on climate change and agriculture in California
Parameters reviewed in this study have direct or indirect impacts on California’s agricultural sector

Summary

Introduction

California is the largest and most diverse agricultural state in the United States of America, with 77,500 farms comprising 5.7 million ha of pasture and rangeland and 3.8 million ha of irrigated cropland that generate an overall agricultural production value of $50.5 billion [1]. The state produces over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts on nearly 1.2% of the nation’s farmland. California grows over 400 different commodities, some of which are produced nowhere else in the nation. About 50% of the nuts and fruits consumed in the Unites States are grown in California, including almonds, pistachios, walnuts, grapes, citrus, apricots, dates, figs, kiwi fruit, nectarines, prunes, and olives [2]. California leads in the production of avocados, grapes, Agronomy 2018, 8, 25; doi:10.3390/agronomy8030025 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy. California’s top 20 crop and livestock commodities represented more than $41.1 billion in gross revenue in 2015 [1]

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