High emissions could increase the future risk of maize drought in China by 60–70 %

Abstract

Drought events have considerable direct and indirect economic, environmental, and social impacts, but few studies have analyzed and assessed future changes in drought disasters from a risk perspective to guide responses and adaptations thoroughly. Studying the potential climate-related impacts on future crop yield is therefore urgently needed. Intercomparison of the three Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) scenarios based drought risks and yield loss of China was carried out using the climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), and the hotspots of high drought risk regions were identified. This study found that the areas affected by severe maize drought (loss ratio larger than 0.2) accounted for 16.13 %, 20.79 %, and 18.87 % of the total national corn areas under three low, medium-to-high and high emission scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0, SSP5-8.5) respectively. The northwest China maize region, the ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry, and the western central northern China maize region have relatively high loss risk. Compared with SSP1-2.6, the yield loss rates increased with 70.73 % and 61.52 % of national corn areas for SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5, respectively. There is a decrease in the areas with low-risk and a significant increase in the areas with high-risk for SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 compared to the SSP1-2.6. These results may provide theoretical support for agricultural drought risk reduction and adaptation planning to ensure food security under climate change.