scholarly journals The application of agricultural land rating and crop models to CO2 and climate change issues in Northern regions: the Mackenzie Basin case study

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brklacich

The Mackenzie Basin in northwestern Canada covers approximately 1.8 million km2 and extends from 52°N to 70°N. Much of the Basin is currently too cool and remote from markets to support a viable agricultural sector, but the southern portion of the Basin has the physical potential to support commercial agriculture. This case study employed agricultural land rating and crop models to estimate the degree to which a CO2 -induced global warming might alter the physical potential for commercial agriculture throughout the Basin. The two climate change scenarios considered in this analysis would relax the current constraints imposed by a short and cool frost-free season, but without adaptive measures, drier conditions and accelerated crop development rates were estimated to offset potential gains stemming from elevated CO2 levels and warmer temperatures. In addition to striving for a better understanding of the extent to which physical constraints on agriculture might be modified by climate change, there is a need to expand the research context and to consider the capacity of agriculture to adapt to altered climates.

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio-Juan Collados-Lara ◽  
David Pulido-Velazquez ◽  
Rosa María Mateos ◽  
Pablo Ezquerro

In this work, we developed a new method to assess the impact of climate change (CC) scenarios on land subsidence related to groundwater level depletion in detrital aquifers. The main goal of this work was to propose a parsimonious approach that could be applied for any case study. We also evaluated the methodology in a case study, the Vega de Granada aquifer (southern Spain). Historical subsidence rates were estimated using remote sensing techniques (differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar, DInSAR). Local CC scenarios were generated by applying a bias correction approach. An equifeasible ensemble of the generated projections from different climatic models was also proposed. A simple water balance approach was applied to assess CC impacts on lumped global drawdowns due to future potential rainfall recharge and pumping. CC impacts were propagated to drawdowns within piezometers by applying the global delta change observed with the lumped assessment. Regression models were employed to estimate the impacts of these drawdowns in terms of land subsidence, as well as to analyze the influence of the fine-grained material in the aquifer. The results showed that a more linear behavior was observed for the cases with lower percentage of fine-grained material. The mean increase of the maximum subsidence rates in the considered wells for the future horizon (2016–2045) and the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenario 8.5 was 54%. The main advantage of the proposed method is its applicability in cases with limited information. It is also appropriate for the study of wide areas to identify potential hot spots where more exhaustive analyses should be performed. The method will allow sustainable adaptation strategies in vulnerable areas during drought-critical periods to be assessed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Wang ◽  
Yong He ◽  
Budong Qian ◽  
Brian McConkey ◽  
Herb Cutforth ◽  
...  

Wang, H., He, Y., Qian, B., McConkey, B., Cutforth, H., McCaig, T., McLeod, G., Zentner, R., DePauw, R., Lemke, R., Brandt, K., Liu, T., Qin, X., White, J., Hunt, T. and Hoogenboom, G. 2012. Short Communication: Climate change and biofuel wheat: A case study of southern Saskatchewan. Can. J. Plant Sci. 92: 421–425. This study assessed potential impacts of climate change on wheat production as a biofuel crop in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. The Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer-Cropping System Model (DSSAT-CSM) was used to simulate biomass and grain yield under three climate change scenarios (CGCM3 with the forcing scenarios of IPCC SRES A1B, A2 and B1) in the 2050s. Synthetic 300-yr weather data were generated by the AAFC stochastic weather generator for the baseline period (1961–1990) and each scenario. Compared with the baseline, precipitation is projected to increase in every month under all three scenarios except in July and August and in June for A2, when it is projected to decrease. Annual mean air temperature is projected to increase by 3.2, 3.6 and 2.7°C for A1B, A2 and B1, respectively. The model predicted increases in biomass by 28, 12 and 16% without the direct effect of CO2 and 74, 55 and 41% with combined effects (climate and CO2) for A1B, A2 and B1, respectively. Similar increases were found for grain yield. However, the occurrence of heat shock (>32°C) will increase during grain filling under the projected climate conditions and could cause severe yield reduction, which was not simulated by DSSAT-CSM. This implies that the future yield under climate scenarios might have been overestimated by DSSAT-CSM; therefore, model modification is required. Several measures, such as early seeding, must be taken to avoid heat damages and take the advantage of projected increases in temperature and precipitation in the early season.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Junior Zuza ◽  
Yoseph Negusse Araya ◽  
Kadmiel Maseyk ◽  
Shonil A Bhagwat ◽  
Kaue de Sousa ◽  
...  

Climate change is altering suitable areas of crop species worldwide, with cascading effects on people and animals reliant upon those crop species as food sources. Macadamia is one of Malawi's most important and profitable crop species. Here, we used an ensemble model approach to determine the current distribution of macadamia producing areas across Malawi in relation to climate. For future distribution of suitable areas, we used the climate outputs of 17 general circulation models (GCM's) based on two climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). We found that the precipitation of the driest month and isothermality were the climatic variables that strongly influenced macadamia's suitability in Malawi. These climatic requirements were fulfilled across many areas in Malawi under the current conditions. Future projections indicated that large parts of Malawi's macadamia growing regions will remain suitable for macadamia, amounting to 36,910 km2 (39.1%) and 33,511 km2 (35.5%) of land based on RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively. Of concern, suitable areas for macadamia production are predicted to shrink by −18% (17,015 km2) and −22% (20,414 km2) based on RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively, with much of the suitability shifting northwards. Although a net loss of area suitable for macadamia is predicted, some currently unsuitable areas will become suitable in the future. Notably, suitable areas will increase in Malawi's central and northern regions, while the southern region will lose most of its suitable areas. In conclusion, our study provides critical evidence that climate change will significantly affect the macadamia sub-sector in Malawi. Therefore area-specific adaptation strategies are required to build resilience.


Author(s):  
Albano Figueiredo ◽  
Carolina Alves ◽  
Joaquim Patriarca ◽  
Andreia Saavedra Cardoso ◽  
Paula Castro ◽  
...  

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 771
Author(s):  
Pak Shing Yeung ◽  
Jimmy Chi-Hung Fung ◽  
Chao Ren ◽  
Yong Xu ◽  
Kangning Huang ◽  
...  

Urbanization is one of the most significant contributing factors to anthropogenic climate change. However, a lack of projected city land use data has posed significant challenges to factoring urbanization into climate change modeling. Thus, the results from current models may contain considerable errors in estimating future climate scenarios. The Pearl River Delta region was selected as a case study to provide insight into how large-scale urbanization and different climate change scenarios impact the local climate. This study adopts projected land use data from freely available satellite imagery and applies dynamic simulation land use results to the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The simulation periods cover the summer periods in 2010 and 2029–2031, the latter of which is averaged to represent the year 2030. The WRF simulation used the observed local climate conditions in 2010 to represent the current scenario and the projected local climate changes for 2030 as the future scenario. Under all three future climate change scenarios, the warming trend is prominent (around 1–2 °C increase), with a widespread reduction in wind speed in inland areas (1–2 ms−1). The vulnerability of human health to thermal stress was evaluated by adopting the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT). The results from the future scenarios suggest a high public health risk due to rising temperatures in the future. This study provides a methodology for a more comprehensive understanding of future urbanization and its impact on regional climate by using freely available satellite images and WRF simulation tools. The simulated temperature and WBGT results can serve local governments and stakeholders in city planning and the creation of action plans that will reduce the potential vulnerability of human health to excessive heat.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2072
Author(s):  
Liuzzo ◽  
Freni

Recent studies have pointed out that climate change is likely to have important implications on the extent and frequency of flooding events. Indeed, the intensification of the water cycle occurring in different areas of the world can dramatically affect the incidence of extreme events and, consequently, the flow in rivers or artificial channels, increasing the probability of disastrous floods. In this context, the criteria for the assessment of flood risk need to be improved to take into account the variability of rainfall due to climate change. In this study, a Bayesian procedure was used to update the parameters of the depth–duration–frequency (DDF) curves and quantify the uncertainty related to their assessment in some climate change scenarios. The critical storm obtained from these updated DDF curves was used as input for the FLO-2D hydraulic model, in order to investigate the effects of climate change on flood risk. The area of study was an urban catchment in Piazza Armerina, a small town located in Southern Italy. Results showed that rainfall variations remarkably affect not only the magnitude of flood events, but also the flood susceptibility of the study area.


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