Investigating the impacts of climate change on Chinese agriculture

This paper reports on a regional climate change model developed to predict the impacts of climate change of Chinese agriculture. The model, developed by the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change Predication and Research, took into account climate and soil variables, and the influence of higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide on plant metabolism. The study also looked at how socio-economic development could have a future impact on Chinese agriculture.There is significant regional variation in the results with southern China having a higher population density and a relatively smaller amount of arable land per capita compared with northern China which has a lower population density but per capita arable land is relatively large. However general conclusions from the modelling project include:depending on the level of future carbon emissions, the average temperature increase in China by the end of the 21st century may be between 3 and 4 degrees centigradehigher levels of carbon dioxide tend to increase yield, and thereby reduce and even reverse the negative effects of climate change, depending on other factors such as climate impacts on water and nutrient availability , pests and diseasesclimate change without carbon dioxide fertilisation could reduce yields of rice, maize and wheat by up to 37% in the next 20 to 80 yearsunder a high economic growth scenario, the area of arable land would decline by around 13 percent, increasing the pressure on the remaining agricultural land.Future avenues of research identified include:further exploration of the effects of carbon dioxide fertilisation for crop metabolismthe assessment of climate change impacts on water resource availability at a national and regional level in China.[adapted from author]