Increase in grain production potential of China under climate change

Liang, Zhuoran1; Sun, Laixiang2,3; Tian, Zhan4; Fischer, Guenther5; Yan, Huimin6

2023-03-01

10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad057

PNAS NEXUS   Impact Factor & Quartile

2752-6542

The rapid growth of China's demand for grains is expected to continue in the coming decades, largely as a result of the increasing feed demand to produce protein-rich food. This leads to a great concern on future supply potentials of Chinese agriculture under climate change and the extent of China's dependence on world food markets. While the existing literature in both agronomy and climate economics indicates a dominance of the adverse impacts of climate change on rice, wheat, and maize yields, there is a lack of study to assess changes in multi-cropping opportunities induced by climate change. Multi-cropping benefits crop production by harvesting more than once per year from a given plot. To address this important gap, we established a procedure within the agro-ecological zones (AEZ) modeling framework to assess future spatial shifts of multi-cropping conditions. The assessment was based on an ensemble of five general circulation models under four representative concentration pathway scenarios in the phase five of coupled model inter-comparison project and accounted for the water scarcity constraints. The results show significant northward extensions of single-, double-, and triple-cropping zones in the future which would provide good opportunities for crop-rotation-based adaptation. The increasing multi-cropping opportunities would be able to boost the annual grain production potential by an average scale of 89(+/- 49) Mt at the current irrigation efficiency and 143(+/- 46) Mt at the modernized irrigation efficiency with improvement between the baseline (1981-2010) and the mid-21st century (2041-2070).

climate change adaption food security multiple cropping supply potentials China

ESCI

English

Corresponding

National Natural Science Foundation of China["41371110","40921140410"]

Science & Technology - Other Topics ; Social Sciences - Other Topics

Multidisciplinary Sciences ; Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary

WOS:001063372900046

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Web of Science

1.Hangzhou Meteorol Serv, Hangzhou 310051, Zhejiang, Peoples R China
2.Univ Maryland, Dept Geog Sci, College Pk, MD 20742 USA
3.SOAS Univ London, Sch Finance & Management, London WC1H 0XG, England
4.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Environm Sci & Engn, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, Peoples R China
5.Int Inst Appl Syst Anal IIASA, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
6.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geog Sci & Nat Resources Res IGSNRR, Beijing 100101, Peoples R China

Liang, Zhuoran,Sun, Laixiang,Tian, Zhan,et al. Increase in grain production potential of China under climate change[J]. PNAS NEXUS,2023,2(3).

Liang, Zhuoran,Sun, Laixiang,Tian, Zhan,Fischer, Guenther,&Yan, Huimin.(2023).Increase in grain production potential of China under climate change.PNAS NEXUS,2(3).

Liang, Zhuoran,et al."Increase in grain production potential of China under climate change".PNAS NEXUS 2.3(2023).