Impact of Future Climate Change on Wheat Production: A Simulated Case for China’s Wheat System

De Liu,Huizi Bai,Dengpan Xiao

doi:10.3390/su10041277

Abstract

With regard to global climate change due to increasing concentration in greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), it is important to examine its potential impact on crop development and production. We used statistically-downscaled climate data from 28 Global Climate Models (GCMs) and the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM)–Wheat model to simulate the impact of future climate change on wheat production. Two future scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) were used for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations during two different future periods (2031–2060 referred to as 40S and 2071–2100 referred to as 80S). Relative to the baseline period (1981–2010), the trends in mean daily temperature and radiation significantly increased across all stations under the future scenarios. Furthermore, the trends in precipitation increased under future climate scenarios. Due to climate change, the trend in wheat phenology significantly advanced. The early flowering and maturity dates shortened both the vegetative growth stage (VGP) and the whole growth period (WGP). As the advance in the days of maturity was more than that in flowering, the length of the reproductive growth stage (RGP) of spring wheat was shortened. However, as the advance in the date of maturity was less than that of flowering, the RGP of winter wheat was extended. When the increase in CO2 concentration under future climate scenarios was not considered, the trend in change in wheat production for the baseline declined. In contrast, under increased CO2 concentration, the trend in wheat yield increased for most of the stations (except for Nangong station) under future climatic conditions. Winter wheat and spring wheat evapotranspiration (ET) decreased across all stations under the two future climate scenarios. As wheat yield increased with decreasing water consumption (as ET) under the future climatic conditions, water use efficiency (WUE) significantly improved in the future period.

Highlights

Global climate change including increasing atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, warming temperature, changing surface solar radiation, and variable precipitation is expected to have a significant effect on crop development and production [1,2,3]
Future climate change could have a significant impact on agriculture, especially the combined effects of elevated temperature, increased droughts, and reduced crop-water availability
The Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) wheat simulation model was used to simulate the impact of climate change on wheat yield based on future climate change across wheat cropping regions in China

Summary

Introduction

Global climate change including increasing atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, warming temperature, changing surface solar radiation, and variable precipitation is expected to have a significant effect on crop development and production [1,2,3]. Due to the lack of daily climate data (e.g., daily radiation, temperature, and precipitation) on the future conditions, it is hard to conclusively demonstrate site-specific impact assessments of future climate change on crop production [8]. It is possible to assess the impact of future climate change on crop production through the joint use of GCMs and crop models [15,16]. Spatio-temporal scale mismatches between the GCMs and crop simulation models must be bridged through downscaling [20] This can be achieved either by dynamic or statistical downscaling to obtain high resolution or site-specific climate data [21]. The use of statistical downscaling in climate change studies allows for the exploration of the effects of changes in mean climate, climatic variability, and extreme events [23]

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