Study on the thresholds of grain production risk from climate change in China's main grain-producing areas

Abstract

With the increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events caused by global climate change, the risks to grain production have become more and more prominent. This paper uses the economic and climate data from 1981 to 2016 in China's main grain-producing areas as its source data. The economic-climate model is combined with the grey model GM(1,1) and the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) the second generation Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model (BCC-CSM2-MR) to further explore the impacts of climate change on China's grain production, and to estimated regional differences in China's grain production under different scenarios. The thresholds of grain production risk from climate change is mainly the value of the risks to the per capita grain production and to the grain yield per hectare under the SSP1-RCP2.6, SSP2-RCP4.5 and SSP5-RCP8.5 scenarios. Starting with historical data, we assess the safety and risk thresholds of China's grain production. The results show that the grain production in the northern region of China will gradually increase with the increase of emission intensity in different scenarios of climate change: SSP1-RCP26, SSP2-RCP45 and SSP5-RCP85, while that in the southern region is just the opposite in 2016–2050. The risks to grain production are mainly concentrated in southern region of China under the different emission scenarios, and the risks of grain production tends to decrease gradually over time. The northward shift of the grain production center further changes China's grain production and sales pattern from "sending grain from the South to the North" in to "sending grain from the North to the South". In order to understand the further climate situation from the perspective of economic, this study provides scientific support for the study of the main impacts of climate change on China's main grain-production areas.