Does weather sensitivity of rice yield vary across sub-regions of a country? Evidence from Eastern and Southern India

Abstract

Assessment of regional (sub-national) impacts of climate change has gained increasing attention in the literature. This study uses four decades of district-level information and variations in regional rice growing season window to estimate region-specific crop yield–weather response functions for Southern and Eastern India. The study finds that estimated sensitivity of rice yield to intra-seasonal changes in weather parameters vary across regions. Comparison of simulated impacts suggests that using an all-India response function, which ignores key region-specific characteristics influencing regional weather-sensitivity, tends to significantly overestimate regional impacts and undermines the spatial distribution of impacts within each region. Simulated impacts using region-specific response functions suggest that average yield losses due to past changes in climate for the Southern and the Eastern regions could be about ∼8% and ∼5%, respectively. This study highlights the need for incorporating region-specific characteristics in regional vulnerability assessments for effective local adaptation planning.