Adverse Impact Of Climate Change Research Articles

Assessment of Carbon-Related Scenarios for Tourism Development in the Island of Lefkada in Greece

To address the adverse impact of climate change, the concept of low-carbon tourism has recently been developed, which promotes a new way of travelling to obtain higher value and travel experience for tourists as well as more social, economic, and environmental benefits for society by reducing carbon emissions caused by tourists’ activities. The present study proposes and applies a methodological approach to assess various carbon-related scenarios for tourism development on the island of Lefkada, Greece. The methodology includes two phases: the diagnosis and the assessment phase. The diagnosis phase includes four distinct steps: (i) SWOT analysis, (ii) STEEP analysis, (iii) identification of driving forces (DF) and (iv) formulation of four tourism development scenarios based on two axes of uncertainty. The assessment phase includes: (i) a pairwise comparison of DF and (ii) selection of the preferred tourism development scenario. A combination of two multicriteria analyses, namely the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), is implemented to rank the four tourism development scenarios. The two most essential driving forces for defining the priority order of the tourism development scenario are National Policies—Green Development and Local Community Awareness. The scenario that promotes low-carbon tourism is the preferred scenario for the study area. The presented research results could provide a reference for relevant tourism development in the study area and the proposed methodology can be applied in all tourism destinations.

Prospective crop yield and income return based on a retrospective analysis of a long-term rainfed agriculture experiment in Nebraska

CONTEXTNebraska, US, is projected to face increased winter and spring precipitation, and drier summers as the climate changes over the next 20 to 30 years. Agricultural adaptations and adjustments would be critical to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change and achieve global food security. OBJECTIVEFocusing on the projected climatic change projections for Nebraska, our objective is to analyze data from a long-term (31 years; 1986–2016) rainfed agriculture experiment to determine how past years, that had similar conditions to the projected future climate - wetter winter (WW), wetter spring (WS), and dry summer (DS), responded to these conditions and attempt to describe the near-future (upcoming 20–30 years) corn and soybean yield, and income returns in northeast Nebraska. METHODSFirst, we used a meteorological drought index, to determine years with projected future climate (6 years with WW, 4 years with WS, and 4 years with DS) and 9 all normal (AN) seasons years during the study period. Second, we performed a linear mixed-model analysis of variance to compare treatment (tillage: no-till, disk-till and plow-till; crop rotation: continuous-corn, corn-soybean; Nitrogen rates: 0–160 kg-N/ha) interaction and their effect on crop yield between projected future climate (WW, WS and DS) years and AN years. Finally, we used partial budgeting to calculate change in income and income risk across imposed management practices. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSResults indicate that corn years with WW, WS, and DS seasons showed yield reductions of 9.1%, 10.9%, and 38.6% compared to an average AN season corn yield, which was 11.3 Mg/ha. Compared to the average AN season yield of 3.6 Mg/ha, soybean yields were + 1.4%, −3.3%, and − 31.8% for WW, WS, and DS, respectively. These yield differences did not significantly affect average corn and soybean income return in WW and WS years compared to the AN years (900 $/ha). However, total income returns in DS seasons regardless of pre-season conditions was about 40% of income return in AN seasons from CS (900 $/ha) and CC (800 $/ha), respectively. Soybean yield and income returns were more stable than corn, which resulted in the corn-soybean rotation system always being higher in yields and being more profitable. SIGNIFICANCEOur recommended management practice of disk tillage and corn-soybean rotation with 80 kg-N/ha could result in highest and stable income returns in near-future. Such long-term crop experimental studies can serve as an important complement to crop-model studies to get improved insight into future crop yield and income returns.

Response of regional agricultural water use to the change of climate and plantation structure in the typical agricultural region of China

Abstract Climate is one of the main factors affecting agricultural water use. The variation of different climate factors will have a great impact on the balance of water supply, which will significantly aggravate the water-related threats to the sustainability of agricultural production. As a typical agricultural area of China, the Huang-Huai-Hai region is one of the major grain-producing areas. In order to evaluate the response of future agricultural water use to future uncertain changeable factors, this study assessed future agricultural water use with the coupling effect of climate change, irrigation efficiency and plantation structure change. The results showed that the temperature and precipitation both increased to different degrees under the two greenhouse gas emission and radiation forcing scenarios, which have great impacts on the crop water requirement (ETc) of main crops. Under RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) 8.5, a 10% increase in the irrigation water utilization coefficient will reduce the regional irrigation water requirement by about 13 Gm3, and the adjustment of plantation structure will reduce the irrigation water consumption by about 11 Gm3. The quantitative analysis suggests that the improvement of the irrigation efficiency and the expansion of water-saving crop plantation areas in the future will moderate the adverse impact of climate change on agricultural water use. This study provides a reference for the management of agricultural water and the rational distribution of water resources under the future climate change.

Assessing Impact of Billion Tree Tsunami Project on Environment and Livelihood Strategies: A Case Study from District Faisalabad

The study aims to analyze the impact of the Billion Tree Tsunami Project on the environment and livelihood of the people. The main focus was to assess the impacts of this project in Faisalabad localities. For this purpose, primary data were collected through face to face survey, and respondents were selected by using the quota sampling technique. A total of 124 respondents were interviewed by using a structured questionnaire and analyzed through SPSS software. The results show that improved water storage capacity (Mean =3.95 and SD=0.927, sustain ecosystem (Mean =3.72 and SD=0.98) were ranked at the top by the respondents in assessing the impact of Billion Tree Tsunami Project (BTTP) on the environment. Moreover, the impact of BTTP was assessed by taking the perception of respondents on different attributes. It was observed that factor of labour opportunities was highly endorsed by the respondents. Every age group had almost the same perception of the impact of the billion trees tsunami project. The majority of the highly qualified people (postgraduation and above) had a more positive opinion about billion tree tsunami project as compared to those respondents who were less educated. The gamma statistic is 0.344 (p = .010) which demonstrate a significant and positive relationship between the selected factors. It is concluded that Billion Tree Tsunami Project imprinted strong footings in Faisalabad district as in the overall country. Further, it was recommended that the BTTP project one of the best step to save the environment from the adverse impact of climate change.

Spatio-temporal variation of irrigation water requirements for wheat and maize in the Yellow River Basin, China, 1974–2017

Irrigation is a prerequisite for the sustainable development of agricultural production. With the existing of water resources shortage and climate change, it is of great importance to explore the variation of crop irrigation water requirement (IWR) in the Yellow River Basin (YRB). Based on 1974–2017 meteorological dataset from 96 stations, we analyzed the spatio-temporal variation characteristics of meteorological factors and crop IWR during the growing seasons of four main crops including spring wheat, winter wheat, spring maize and summer maize, respectively. Furthermore, we explored the dominant meteorological factors of the crop IWR variation. The results indicated that daily mean temperature (T) had a significant upward trend, while the effective precipitation (Peff) did not change significantly during the growing season of each crop in the past 44 years. Crop IWR had increasing trend with 9.9 mm/decade, 4.3 mm/decade, 6.4 mm/decade for spring wheat, winter wheat, spring maize respectively, while a slight decreasing trend with − 1.7 mm/decade for summer maize. It is noted that extremely significant increase in crop IWR were mostly located in Ningxia, southern Gansu and eastern Qinghai. Moreover, Peff, net radiation (Rn) and relative humidity (RH) were identified as the dominant meteorological factors influencing variations of IWR for all crops. In the context of significant increase in T and uncertain future precipitation patterns, IWR for spring wheat, winter wheat and spring maize in the YRB has shown an upward trend which is not favorable to the sustainable development of water resources. It is urgent to take effective water-saving measures to hedge the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture. These findings can provide scientific basis for rational allocation of agricultural water resources in the YRB.

Impact of Climate Variation on Agricultural Productivity and Food Security in Rural India

This research paper analyzes the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity in quantity terms, value of production in monetary terms and food security in India. The study undertook state wise analysis based on secondary data for the duration of 1980 to 2009. Climate variation affects food grain and non-food grain productivity and both these factors along with other socioeconomic and government policy variables affect food security. Food security and poverty are interlinked with each other as cause and effect and vice versa, particularly, for a largely agrarian economy of India. Regression results for models proposed in this study show that for most of the food grain crops, non-food grain crops in quantity produced per unit of land and in terms of value of production climate variation cause negative impact. The adverse impact of climate change on the value of agricultural production and food grains indicates food security threat to small and marginal farming households. The state wise food security index was also generated in this study; and econometric model estimation reveals that the food security index itself also gets adversely affected due to climatic fluctuations.

Adaptation Implications of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Rural Pakistan

In this paper, we analyze the drivers of the adoption of climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices and the impact of their adoption on farm net returns and exposure to risks. We use recent farm-level data from three agroecological zones of Pakistan to estimate a multinomial endogenous switching regression for different CSA practices used to reduce the adverse impact of climate change. These strategies include changing input mix, changing cropping calendar, diversifying seed variety, and soil and water conservation measures. The empirical results show that the adoption of different CSA practices is influenced by average rainfall, previous experience of climate-related shocks, and access to climate change information. The findings further reveal that adoption of CSA practices positively and significantly improves farm net returns and reduces farmers’ exposure to downside risks and crop failure. The results also reveal significant differences in the impacts of CSA practice adoption on farm net returns in different agroecological zones. Thus, policies aimed at achieving sustainability in agricultural production should consider agroecological, specific, climate-smart solutions.

English

Climate Compatible Development (CCD) is an emerging development approach which seeks to minimize the threat posed by climate change while maximize the opportunities for development. In view of the adverse impact of climate change on the general development of the country, Ethiopia, a number of polices which constitute climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies have been adopted and established. Among such polices, Ethiopian water resources and disaster risk management policy is expected to have direct and indirect role in addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Rainwater harvesting, water shed management, use of water efficiently, small scale irrigation and water resource protection, strengthening drought and flood early warning system are adaptation strategies for water resource policy, and water harvesting and improved energy efficiency are low carbon footprint strategies/mitigation strategies. Disaster risk management policy also comprises climate change and variability related disaster risk reduction strategies; enhancing early warning information system, and safety net program as the climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, which are the major component of CCD. These policies also have its own limitation in relation to the system base and institutional gap in implementing CCD. In fact, these barriers can be eased by updating and/or adjustment of the policies under the framework of climate compatible development; mainstreaming climate change issues into water resource and disaster risk management policy; strengthening sector-wise linkage and synergy to avoid overlap; as well as monitoring the climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies among sectors. Key words: Climate change, low-carbon footprint, adaptation, mainstreaming, Ethiopia

Estimating the impact of climate change on the potential distribution of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins with species distribution model.

As IUCN critically vulnerable species,the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis) have attracted great public attention in recent years. The threats of human disturbance and environmental pollution to this population have been documented extensively. However, research on the sensitivity of this species to climate change is lacking. To understand the effect of climate change on the potential distribution of Sousa chinensis, we developed a weighted ensemble model based on 82 occurrence records and six predictor variables (e.g., ocean depth, distance to shore, mean temperature, salinity, ice thickness, and current velocity). According to the true skill statistic (TSS) and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), our ensemble model presented higher prediction precision than most of the single-algorithm models. It also indicated that ocean depth and distance to shore were the most important predictors in shaping the distribution patterns. The projections for the 2050s and 2100s from our ensemble model indicated a severe adverse impact of climate change on the Sousa chinensis habitat. Over 75% and 80% of the suitable habitat in the present day will be lost in all representative concentration pathway emission scenarios (RCPS) in the 2050s and 2100s, respectively. With the increased numbers of records of stranding and deaths of Sousa chinensis in recent years, strict management regulations and conservation plans are urgent to safeguard the current suitable habitats. Due to habitat contraction and poleward shift in the future, adaptive management strategies, including designing new reserves and adjusting the location and range of reserves according to the geographical distribution of Sousa chinensis, should be formulated to minimize the impacts of climate change on this species.

Preliminary Study on Ecological Water Conservancy Strategy to Cope with Climate Challenge

Global warming has caused sea level rise, extreme meteorological events, flood and drought disasters. From the perspective of ecological civilization construction, taking China as a typical example, this paper explored how to deal with the adverse impact of climate change on human and ecosystem through the development of ecological water conservancy. The main measures were as follows: firstly, construct the national water network connecting the natural water systems in the South and North of China, play the role of the Yellow River as a link to ecologically replenish water in arid and semi-arid areas; secondly, recover the over exploited groundwater in North and Northeast China and the ancient lakes in Northwest China. By storing a large amount of water on land, the goal that slowing down the speed of the sea level rise, reducing the flood damage in the south and coastal areas, repairing and improving the ecological environment in the north and northwest regions of China and spurring the local economic development could be achieved.

PROGRESS IMPLEMENTATION OF TARGET 9 OF GLOBAL STRATEGY FOR PLANT CONSERVATION CONDUCTED BY INDONESIAN BOTANIC GARDEN NETWORK

Plant have been cultivated for a long time, they have been selected and bred by our ancestors for their nutritional qualities, flavor, productivity, storage ability and other valued traits. Crop Wild Relative (CWR) are often neglected because they have not been used for domestication. However, world population growth together with the potentially adverse impact of climate change on agricultural production, calls for greater action to ensure global food security. Indonesian Botanic Garden already ratified Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). One of the programs is the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). The GSPC vision is to stop the plant diversity loss through five objectives and 16 targets for plant conservation to be achieved by 2020. The study was to identify the implementation of target 9 of GSPC by Indonesian Botanic Garden Network. The result showed that there are four reason Indonesian Botanic Garden has participated in target 9 of GSPC, We also provided success stories from other botanic garden to encourage Indonesian Botanic Garden to conserve more Indonesian Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) whilst facilitating their use in crop improvement.

Understanding the determinants of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder maize farmers in South-west, Nigeria

Climate is one of the most important factors in agricultural productivity, which could directly or indirectly influence productivity since the climate is linked to physiological processes. It is, therefore, essential to understanding the various strategies used by farmers to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change and the factors that influence maize farmers' adoption and intensity of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder maize farmers in South-west Nigeria. In all, a sample of three hundred and thirty (311) smallholder maize farmers were interviewed. A double-hurdle count data model was employed to estimate the factors influencing farmers' adoption of adaptation strategies while accounting for selection bias with the plugging of inverse mill ratio (IMR) as a regressor. Significant variables such as household size, depreciation ratio, frequency of extension visits, access to extension, and non-farm income were factors influencing the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among maize farmers. Age of the respondent, age square, household size, farm-based organization (FBO), non-farm income, climate information, access to credit, farmers residing in Osun State (location_Osun), distance to market significantly influenced the intensity of climate change adaptation strategies. This study, therefore, concluded that farm-level policy efforts that aim to improve rural development should focus on farmers’ membership in FBO, increase the visits of extension agents, encourage non-farm income and access to climate change information, particularly during the off-cropping season. Policies and investment strategies of the government should be geared towards supporting improved extension service, providing on-farm demonstration training, and disseminating information about climate change adaptation strategies, particularly for smallholder farmers in Nigeria.

Health expenditures, remittances, and climate vulnerability: Evidence from Bangladesh

Remittances’ effect on a household’s health outcome (e.g. Infant mortality) is ambiguous, but the impact on health expenditure is positive and less equivocal in literature. This paper puts the relationship between health expenditure and remittances into a stress test to see whether it survives the adverse impact of climate change. Using a natural experiment of rainfall-driven remittances, I provide an experimental measure for remittances’ effect on the health expenditure among rural households in southern Bangladesh. Health expenditure and remittances are jointly related; therefore, I use the instrumental variable approach. The treatment of remittances is randomly assigned to households who suffered losses due to a natural shock from the cyclone-Roanu enabling the instrument, exogenous variation in rainfall interacted with cyclone affected migrant household’s distance to the local weather stations, to identify the average treatment effect for the treatment group (cyclone-affected remittances recipient households). I find that while remittances cause household health expenditures to increase, the marginal effect of remittances is heterogeneous and negative conditional on the household’s exposure to the level of vulnerability proxied by the household’s distance to cyclone shelter. In other words, the health expenditure-remittances nexus gets weaker with the adverse effect of climate change. Specifically, I find that an increase in remittances by a Taka increases health expenditure by 0.24 Taka (24 Paisa) in the absence of any climate hazard but reduces health expenditure by 0.10 Taka (or 10 Paisa) if the measure of climate vulnerability increases by one standard deviation from its mean value. For countries like Bangladesh, which is exceptionally vulnerable to natural hazards, climate vulnerabilities can render the financing of health care costs through remittances unsustainable even if households receive regular and sizable flows.

ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE BASED ON FARMERS’PERCEPTION: A STUDY ON INDIGENOUS HILLS CULTIVATORS IN NAGALAND, INDIA

Climate change is believed to have severe impacts on different sectors of an economy especially the agricultural sector. The adverse impact of climate change, however, can be mitigated if farmers have awareness and better level of adaptive responses. This study examines the perception of farmers belong to indigenous communities in the state of Nagaland of Northeast India on climate change and analyzes their adaptation responses to climate change. A hundred and twenty farming households were interviewed during July and August 2019. The study employed the Heckman sample selection model to analyse the two- step process of adaptation to climate change. Farmers’ perception of climate change was significantly related to the age of the head of the household, level of education, and past experience of drought and flood. On the other hand, adaptation to climate change is determined by education of household head, economic status, and access to credit, type of cultivation, non-farm income, farming experience, distance to market, and past experience of climatic hazard

Implications of Development Cooperation and State Bureaucracy on Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Bangladesh

Policy action is visible in national and international climate governance. However, policy-making and its implementation often fail to generate the desired outcomes that aim to adapt to the adverse impact of climate change in a developing nation, such as Bangladesh—a country highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Against this backdrop, the study aims to analyze the implication of development cooperation and bureaucratic politics on the policy-making and implementation of climate change adaptation policy in Bangladesh. In doing so, the research uses national and international climate adaptation funds and the existing state administrative framework of the climate adaptation regime. Methodologically, it follows a mixed qualitative–quantitative research approach. The study discusses the following key findings: (1) the general cross-sectoral nature and thrusts of domestic and external climate adaptation funding; (2) how Bangladesh technical departments, such as that for water management, have reacted successfully to ensure the utilization of the funds is for implementing adaptation policy; (3) simultaneously, how Bangladesh bureaucracy, made of the elite, together with politics, have maintained their traditional values, practices, and structures in responding to the administrative requirements of climate adaptation funders, especially bilateral and multilateral development agencies, and (4) what changes should be brought to the bureaucratic cadre and added to the administrative setup in Bangladesh to provide a better overall impact of the adaptation policy and funding.

Enhancement of no-tillage, crop straw return and manure application on field organic matter content overweigh the adverse effects of climate change in the arid and semi-arid Northwest China

Soil organic matter (SOM) is important for sustainable agricultural production. Agricultural management can directly or indirectly affect SOM content and associated soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks. The SOM content and crop productivity are generally low in the farmlands in the arid and semi-arid regions of China, and are highly sensitive to climate changes. An improvement in SOM content may greatly enhance the efficiency of fertilizer and water use, thereby increasing the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change. However, little information is available on the response of SOM to the interactions of cultivation measures and changing climate in the regions. Here we analyzed the effects of climate and long-term management practices on SOM content at three sites in the arid and semi-arid regions of China using the SOM data monitored under a range of management practices. We showed that the manure application, crop residue return and no-tillage had significantly increased SOM content from 12.1% to 127.5% in the long-term experiment at three sites. We also used the DayCent model to simulate the effects of these management practices in combination with future climate changes on the SOM content, and found that climate changes in the near future would not increase SOM content, and even decrease SOM content under conventional agronomic management, but the possible adverse impact of climate change on SOM can be outweighed by the enhancement of agronomic management. Our results provide important information for improving management to maintain SOM content and sustainable production under future climate changes.

Comparing farmers’ perceptions of climate change with meteorological trends and examining farm adaptation measures in hazard-prone districts of northwest Bangladesh

Consistency between farmers’ perceptions of climate change (CC) and meteorological trends leads to effective farm adaptation strategies. This study was conducted in hazard-prone districts, Kurigram (riverbank erosion-prone) and Nilphamari (drought-prone), of the northwest region of Bangladesh to compare farmers’ perceptions of CC with meteorological trends, and to examine farm adaptation measures. A total of 252 smallholder households were interviewed. Household survey, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and field observations were carried out to collect the primary data. The findings revealed that farmers’ perceptions of CC were consistent with the meteorological trends of the past 30 years (1986–2015) and showed increasing temperature parameters and decreasing rainfall parameters. Farmers perceived negative impacts were increased summer temperature and length of summer days, decreased rainfall intensity, number of rainy days and length of winter days as well as increased intensity of floods, droughts, riverbank erosion and other natural hazards. The farmers also noted significant moderate to high impact of CC on agricultural production. The practiced adaptation strategies were low to medium, and almost all the households applied traditional strategies including compost and manure in their fields and practiced crop rotation as well as homestead gardening to minimize the adverse impact of CC. The study recommends bridging information gaps between the scientific community and farmers about CC adaptation options to meet challenges posed by CC. This study also provides field-based evidence for devising CC mitigation and adaptation policies.

National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health-India, 2019

Introduction: In 2015, India’s response to climate change was broadened by introducing four new missions including “Health”. National Action Plan for Climate Change and Human Health (NAPCCHH) was prepared in 2018 with objective to strengthen health care services against adverse impact of climate change on health. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) approved National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) under National Health Mission (NHM) in February 2019. The common Climate Sensitive Diseases (CSDs) are - air pollution related, heat related, water-borne, vector-borne, cardiopulmonary diseases, mental health, food-borne, nutrition related illnesses etc. Currently the three key areas of focus for NPCCHH include air pollution, heat related illnesses and creation of green and climate resilient healthcare facilities. Air Pollution and Human Health: Acute Respiratory Illnesses (ARI) surveillance in context of air pollution was started in year 2017 in Delhi. Key Strategy in coming years are to expand ARI surveillance in all polluted cities of States, developing State/District/Cities level health sector adaptation plan for air pollution and health. Heat and Human Health: Since 2015, heat related illnesses (HRI) surveillance was started from heat vulnerable States of India. Key Strategies in coming year are strengthening the surveillance, standardizing the investigation of deaths due to suspected heat stroke cases, developing State/ District/ City specific heat and health action plan, increasing public awareness and community outreach, developing measures for early warning system/ alerts and response at State, district and below district level. National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) under MoHFW is incorporating both the green and climate resilient healthcare principles in revising Indian Public Health Service Guidelines.

A case study of climate-smart management in foxtail millet (Setaria italica) production under future climate change in Lishu county of Jilin, China

In China, foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is one of the main cereal crops. Due to its rich nutrition, foxtail millet has also been widely used as Traditional Chinese Medicine in dietary therapy. The spatial distribution of foxtail millet production plays an important role in domestic cropping pattern. Cropping pattern needs to be continually adjusted in order to combat ongoing climate change in China. Such adjustments could greatly affect national foxtail millet production. Under future climate scenarios, adopting climate-smart management has become the general trend to achieve a high and stable foxtail millet production. In this case study, we used DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer) to assess the potential impacts of future climate change on foxtail millet production in Lishu county of Jilin province in Northeast China. According to these potential impacts, we proposed corresponding measures to adapt local foxtail millet production to future climate change. As compared to the base period (1988–2018), foxtail millet grain yield in Lishu county would change by 15.3% (-8.9%) during the 2020s, -8.8% (-10.5%) during the 2030s, -17.7% (0.4%) during the 2040s, and -25.0% (-18.3%) during the 2050s under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5). Under future climate scenarios, climate-smart management (e.g., adjusting sowing date, supplementing irrigation) could partially offset the adverse impact of climate change on foxtail millet yield. However, adopting climate-smart management alone may only provide temporary relief to the potential stresses local foxtail millet production could be facing. In order to achieve a high and stable foxtail millet yield in the future, we suggest local producers adopt new varieties in addition to using climate-smart management.

Understanding the climate change impact on crop yield over Eastern Himalayan Region: ascertaining GCM and scenario uncertainty

It is well established that the adverse impact of climate change is going to affect every aspect of the ecosystem in the hilly terrain of the Himalayan region. Therefore, it is inevitable to assess the climate change impact on crop yield over the hilly terrain to undertake sustainable adaptation and agricultural practices. In the present study, Sikkim is considered as a study area, and crop simulation for three different crops (rice, wheat and maize) is carried out using calibrated AquaCrop with an available baseline dataset of 17 years (1998–2015). The future projections of different crop yields are obtained by using bias-corrected climate scenarios from four different global climate models (GCMs) under two different emission scenarios. Moreover, the uncertainty associated with the GCM and emission scenario is examined through the possibility theory. The outcomes from the simulations indicate an increase in the mean percentage change in the yield (0.5% to 20% for rice, 2% to 44% for wheat and 10% to 25% for maize) over Sikkim during 2021–2099. The increase in the mean yield can be attributed to the suitable temperature profile, increase in the CO2 concentration, high elevation of the study area and no significant water stress during the growing seasons of different crops and using the possibility approach indicates that during the recent past (2006–2015), the stabilized scenario is prevailing over the high emission scenarios in most of the cases. Our results facilitate the water and agricultural manager for considering proper and robust adaptation measures to ensure sustainability.