Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options of Rain-Fed Agriculture in Africa with Integrated Modelling Framework
Publication: Geo-Extreme 2021
ABSTRACT
Rain-fed agriculture areas in Africa are experiencing heavy pressure from climatic changes and food insecurity risk. This paper aims to provide an integrated modeling framework to identify food-insecurity hotspots in African agricultural systems and potential effective adaptation strategies at a local scale. We use the integrated modeling framework to drive rain-fed maize simulation models with baseline and generated climatic data. Maize yields simulated with the current and doubling CO2 concentration are then compared to analyze the effect of CO2 fertilization. Incorporating two local adaptive strategies into crop modeling provided some insights on preferred types of adaptation in different areas. The results showed that rain-fed maize production is highly vulnerable to simulated global warming. Such impacts differed with different weather conditions. Climate change has greater impacts on the relatively arid area. The results of the effectiveness of adaptive strategies imply that adaptive strategies need to be tailored to the local and community level to buffer the yield reduction impacts of climate change effectively.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Amouzou, K. A., Lamers, J. P. A., Naab, J. B., Borgemeister, C., Vlek, P. L. G., and Becker, M. 2019. “Climate change impact on water- and nitrogen-use efficiencies and yields of maize and sorghum in the northern Benin dry savanna, West Africa.” Field Crops Research 235: 104–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2019.02.021.
Basso, B., Liu, L., and Ritchie, J. T. 2016. “A comprehensive review of the CERES- Wheat, -Maize and Rice Models’ Performances.” Advances in Agronomy 136: 27–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.agron.2015.11.004.
Carter, T. R., and La Rovere, E. L. 2001. “Developing and applying scenarios.” In Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 145–191.
Deressa, T. T., Hassan, R., and Ringler, C. 2008a. “Measuring Ethiopian farmers’ vulnerability to climate change across regional states.”. Washington, DC: IFPRI.
Deressa, T. T., and Hassan, R. M. 2009. Economic impact of climate change on crop production in Ethiopia: evidence from cross-section measures. J. Afr. Econ. 18: 529–554. https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejp002.
Deressa, T. T., Hassan, R. M., Alemu, T., Yesuf, M., and Ringler, C. 2008b. “Analysing the determinants of farmers’ choice of adaptation methods and perceptions of climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia.”. Washington, DC: IFPRI.
Donatelli, M., and Champbell, G. S. 1998. “A simple model to estimate global solar radiation.” In Proceedings of the Fifth European Society of Agronomy Congress. 28 June–2 July, Nitra, pp. 133–134.
Feenstra, J. F., Burton, I., Smith, J. B., and Tol, R. S. J. 1998. Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.
Giorgis, K., Tadege, A., and Tibebe, D. 2006. “Estimating crop water use and simulating yield reduction for maize and sorghum in Adama and Miesso Districts using the CROPWAT model.”. Pretoria: University of Pretoria.
Gordon, H. B., et al. 2002. The CSIRO Mk3 Climate System Model. CSIRO Atmospheric Research Technical Paper No. 60, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia, 130 pp, http://www.cmar.csiro.au/e-print/open/gordon_2002a.pdf.
HarvestChoice. 2010. “Generic Soil Profiles for Crop Modeling Applications (HC27).” International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC., and University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN. Available online at http://harvestchoice.org/node/662.
Hijmans, R. J., Cameron, S. E., Parra, J. L., Jones, P. G., and Jarvis, A. 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int. J. Climatol. 25, 1965–1978. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276.
Jones, C. A., and Kiniry, J. R. (Eds.). 1986. CERES-Maize: A simulation model of maize growth and development. Texas A&M Univ. Press, College Station. USA. 196 p.
Jones, J. W., Hoogenboom, G., Porter, C. H., Boote, K. J., Batchelor, W. D., Hunt, L. A., Wilkens, P. W., Singh, U., Gijsman, A. J., and Ritchie, J. T. 2003. The DSSAT cropping system model. Eur. J. Agron. 18, 235–265. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1161-0301(02)00107-7.
Jones, P. G., and Thornton, P. K. 2000. MarkSim: software to generate daily weather data for Latin America and Africa. Agron. J. 92, 445–453. https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj2000.923445x.
Jones, P. G., and Thornton, P. K. 2003. The potential impacts of climate change on maize production in Africa and Latin America in 2055. Glob. Environ. Change 13, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0959-3780(02)00090-0.
Jones, P. G., Thornton, P. K., and Heinke, J. 2011. Generating characteristic daily weather data using downscaled climate model data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment. Available at: https://hc.box.com/shared/f2gk053td8.
Li, L. 2020. Modeling Techniques for Quantifying Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture Productions: Models Comparisons and Impact Assessment Research Framework. Asian Journal of Advances in Agricultural Research, 14 (2020) 35–42. https://doi.org/10.9734/ajaar/2020/v14i130123.
Lobell, D. B., and Burke, M. B. 2008. Why are agricultural impacts of climate change so uncertain? The importance of temperature relative to precipitation. Environ. Res. Lett. 3, 034007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/3/3/034007.
Luo, X. S., Muleta, D., Hu, Z., Tang, H., Zhao, Z., Shen, S., and Lee, B. L. 2017. Inclusive development and agricultural adaptation to climate change. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.02.004.
MOA. 2000. Agro-ecological zones of Ethiopia. MOA, Addis Ababa.
Mongi, H., Majule, A. E., and Lyimo, J. G. 2010. Vulnerability and adaptation of rain fed agriculture to climate change and variability in semi-arid Tanzania. Afr. J. Environ, Sci. Tech. 4, 371–381. https://doi.org/10.5897/ajest09.207.
Parry, M. L., Canziani, O. F., Palutikof, J. P., van der Linden, P. J., and Hanson, C. E. 2007. Climate change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Reilly, J., Baethgen, W., Chege, F. E., van de Geijn, S. C., Erda, L., Iglesias, A., Kenny, G., Patterson, D., Rogasik, J., Rötter, R., Rosenzweig, C., Sombroek, W., Westbrook, J., Bachelet, D., Brklacich, M., Dämmgen, U., and Howden, M. 1996. Agriculture in a changing climate: impacts and adaptation, in: Watson, R. T., Zinyowera, M. C., and Moss, R. H. (Eds.), Climate Change 1995 Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 429–467.
Richardson, C. W. 1981. Stochastic simulation of daily precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation. Water Resour. Res. 17, 182–190. https://doi.org/10.1029/wr017i001p00182.
Roeckner, E., et al. 2003. The Atmospheric General Circulation Model ECHAM5. Part I: Model Description., Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, 127 pp.
Sionit, N., Mortensen, D. A., Strain, B. R., and Hellmers, H. 1981. Growth response of wheat to [CO2] enrichment and different levels of mineral nutrition. Agron. J. 73, 1023–1027. https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj1981.00021962007300060027x.
Taffesse, A. S., Dorosh, P., and Asrat, S. 2012. Crop production in Ethiopia: regional patterns and trends (Research Note 11). Washington, DC: IFPRI.
Thornton, P. K., Jones, P. G., Alagarswamy, G., and Andresen, J. 2009. Spatial variation of crop yield response to climate change in East Africa. Glob. Environ. Change 19, 54–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.08.005.
Zhang, Y., You, L., Lee, D., and Block, P. 2020. Integrating climate prediction and regionalization into an agro-economic model to guide agricultural planning. Climatic Change, 158 (2020) 435–451. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02559-7.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Nov 4, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.