Simulation of rice production under climate change scenarios in the Southern coasts of Caspian Sea

Abstract

Climate change has direct and indirect consequences on crop production and food security. Agriculture and cropproduction is one of the factors which depend on the weather conditions and it provides the human requirements inmany aspects. The objective of this study is to assess the impacts of future climatic change on irrigated rice yieldusing the CERES-Rice model in the Southern Coast of Caspian Sea under three climate change scenarios of Sra1b,Sra2 and Srb1. Required data for this research includes the meteorological, soil and crop management data. Themeteorological data include the daily data of minimum temperature, maximum temperature, solar radiation andprecipitation during 1981-2010 and Global Climate Models (HADCM3, ECHAM5, IPCM4, GFCM2, NCCCSM andINCM3) during 1971-2000. Soil and product management data provided from field experiment was conducted from2008 to 2009 at the Rice Research Institute in Rasht. Validating of Global Climate Models show that ECHAM5climate model has the highest correlation with the lowest error to simulate the future temperature and precipitation.We used ECHAM5 climate model coupled with a crop growth model for simulating of the effects of climate changeon rice protection. The results of prediction of climate change scenarios show that minimum and maximumtemperature will be ascending and precipitation will be decreasing in the Rasht station. Results of simulated yield andbiomass of the rice crop base on scenarios of Sra1b, Sra2 and Srb1 show that rice crop yield and biomass decreasewith increasing of mean temperature and decreasing of precipitation.