Climate-Induced Yield Losses for Winter Wheat in Henan Province, North China and Their Relationship with Circulation Anomalies

Hui Zheng,Jiadong Chen,Jin Huang

doi:10.3390/w13233341

Abstract

Risk analysis using climate-induced yield losses (CIYL) extracted from long-term yield data have been recognized in China, but the research focusing on the time-series characteristics of risk and the circulation signals behind yield losses still remains incomplete. To address these challenges, a case study on winter wheat production in Henan province, north China was conducted by using annual series of yield in 17 cities during 1988–2017 and monthly series of 15 types of large-scale oceanic-atmospheric circulation indices (LOACI). A comprehensive risk assessment method was established by combining the intensity, frequency, and variability of CIYL and principal component analysis (PCA). The results showed that the westernmost Henan was identified as the area of higher-risk. PCA and Mann–Kendall trend tests indicated that the southern, northern, eastern, and western areas in Henan province were classified as having different annual CIYL variations in these four sub-regions; the decreasing trend of CIYL in northern area was the most notable. Since the 2000s, a significant decline in CIYL was found in each sub-region. It should be noted that the key LOACI, which includes Tropical Northern Atlantic Index (TNA), Western Hemisphere warm pool (WHWP), and Southern oscillation index (SOI), indicated significant CIYL anomalies in some months. Furthermore, the regional yield simulation results using linear regression for the independent variables of year and various LOACI were satisfactory, with the average relative error ranging from 3.48% to 6.87%.

Highlights

As reported by Food and Agriculture Organization, global warming over the past few decades has brought frequent extreme high temperature and hydrological events, which have resulted in severe crop yield losses and reduced the income of farmers [1]
These results indicate that the application of large-scale oceanicatmospheric circulation indices (LOACI) as an additional input greatly improved yield prediction
Previous studies of climate-induced yield of winter wheat in Henan indicate that the correlations between CIY and various agro-meteorological indicators ranged from −0.39 to

Summary

Introduction

As reported by Food and Agriculture Organization, global warming over the past few decades has brought frequent extreme high temperature and hydrological events, which have resulted in severe crop yield losses and reduced the income of farmers [1]. The risk analysis of crop yield losses caused by climatic anomalies has been extensively conducted, mainly focusing on content, methods, indicators, and technologies [3]. Based on historical crop yield data, the extracting of yield losses from climate-induced yield (CIY) series directly reflects the comprehensive effects of unfavourable climatic conditions and even meteorological disasters; this method effectively avoids the parametric uncertainty and data complexity present in other risk assessment models [4]. The multi-annual averaged losses rate has been especially widely applied in the risk assessment of grain crops (e.g., wheat, maize, rice) in different regions across China, owing to its simplicity and easy computation [5].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion