Long-term climate change impacts on agricultural productivity in eastern China

Increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to induce significant climate change over the next century and beyond, but the impacts on society remain highly uncertain. This work examines potential climate change impacts on the productivity of five major crops in eastern China: canola, corn, potato, rice, and winter wheat. In addition to determining domain-wide trends, the objective is to identify vulnerable and emergent regions under future climate conditions, defined as having a greater than 10% decrease and increase in productivity, respectively. Data from the ICTP RegCM3 regional climate model for baseline (1961–1990) and future (2071–2100) periods under A2 scenario conditions are used as input for the EPIC agro-ecosystem simulation model in the domain [30°N, 108°E] to [42°N, 123°E]. Simulations are performed with and without the enhanced CO2-fertilization effect. Results indicate that aggregate potential productivity (i.e. if the crop is grown everywhere) increases 6.5% for rice, 8.3% for canola, 18.6% for corn, 22.9% for potato, and 24.9% for winter wheat, although with significant spatial variability for each crop. However, without the enhanced CO2-fertilization effect, potential productivity declines in all cases ranging from 2.5 to 12%. Interannual yield variability remains constant or declines in all cases except rice. Climate variables are found to be more significant drivers of simulated yield changes than changes in soil properties, except in the case of potato production in the northwest where the effects of wind erosion are more significant. Overall, in the future period corn and winter wheat benefit significantly in the North China Plain, rice remains dominant in the southeast and emerges in the northeast, potato and corn yields become viable in the northwest, and potato yields suffer in the southwest with no other crop emerging as a clear beneficiary from among those simulated in this study.