Regional food production and land redistribution as adaptation to climate change in the U.S. Northeast Seaboard

Abstract

Potential corn and winter-wheat grain, and potato crop yields in the United States Northeastern Seaboard Region (NESR) were simulated under current and future climate scenarios and two water management regimes to evaluate production shifts and land-based adaptation methods. Geospatial data consisting of historical climate, land use, soil, and crop management were coupled with a weather generator, three explanatory crop models, and spatially and temporally downscaled mid-century climate change scenarios to conduct the simulations at sub-county spatial resolution. Unadapted winter wheat yield increased 48% in response to mid-century projected climate changes, but corn grain declined 19% and potato 42% across the NESR, resulting in a net loss in caloric production. The contribution of the three crops to regional food production with respect to historical and mid-century climate conditions was evaluated on the basis of caloric content as a measure of yield capacity. The caloric content declined by 7 to 15% across the three commodities when averaged among all states in the region if no adaptation changes were implemented. Two land redistribution schemes were derived to compensate for this loss by re-allocating the existing land-base within each county to specific crops based on model predicted changes in productivity along with identifying additional increments of additional potential land. These approaches showed that less than 1.6% of the potentially available agricultural land base in the region would be needed to compensate for calorie losses due to climate change. These results qualify land redistribution as a pragmatic and direct adaptation strategy to the threat of climate change on regional food security.