scholarly journals Current Evidence and Future Projections: a Comparative Analysis of the Impacts of Climate Change on Critical Climate-Sensitive Areas of Papua New Guinea

Author(s):  
Patrick S. Michael

Climate change is a global concern arising from spatial or temporal changes in precipitation, temperature and greenhouse gases. The impacts of this on critical climate-sensitive areas are largely on land, marine resources, forestry and agriculture, and their biodiversity and ecosystems. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the mainstay (85%) of the rural people is on land and agriculture, compared to resources obtained from the marine areas and forest. Productivity on land depends on climatic factors and a compromised climate affects land, which in turn affects forestry, agriculture and the marine environment (resources and ecosystems). Because of this, a lot of resources have been invested in climate change to understand the impacts; however, much is yet to be achieved, especially in the developing nations. In PNG, understanding the types of changes in climate that will be experienced is important to be resilient, to mitigate and to adapt. In this review, the potential impact of global climate change on climate of PNG and the impact of the new (future) climate on land, marine and forest resources and their biodiversity and ecosystems are analyzed. Moreover, the impacts on crop agriculture are discussed. Analysis of available data shows that the temporal and spatial changes in precipitation and temperature projections of the future climate are within current optimum crop production ranges, at least up to 2090. Since most staple and plantation crops in PNG are C<sub>3</sub> plants, an increase in CO<sub>2</sub> levels will have a fertilizing effect on productivity. The plastic effects on certain crops may benefit some farmers as temperature, precipitation and CO<sub>2</sub> levels change.

Author(s):  
J. Macholdt ◽  
J. Glerup Gyldengren ◽  
E. Diamantopoulos ◽  
M. E. Styczen

Abstract One of the major challenges in agriculture is how climate change influences crop production, for different environmental (soil type, topography, groundwater depth, etc.) and agronomic management conditions. Through systems modelling, this study aims to quantify the impact of future climate on yield risk of winter wheat for two common soil types of Eastern Denmark. The agro-ecosystem model DAISY was used to simulate arable, conventional cropping systems (CSs) and the study focused on the three main management factors: cropping sequence, usage of catch crops and cereal straw management. For the case region of Eastern Denmark, the future yield risk of wheat does not necessarily increase under climate change mainly due to lower water stress in the projections; rather, it depends on appropriate management and each CS design. Major management factors affecting the yield risk of wheat were N supply and the amount of organic material added during rotations. If a CS is characterized by straw removal and no catch crop within the rotation, an increased wheat yield risk must be expected in the future. In contrast, more favourable CSs, including catch crops and straw incorporation, maintain their capacity and result in a decreasing yield risk over time. Higher soil organic matter content, higher net nitrogen mineralization rate and higher soil organic nitrogen content were the main underlying causes for these positive effects. Furthermore, the simulation results showed better N recycling and reduced nitrate leaching for the more favourable CSs, which provide benefits for environment-friendly and sustainable crop production.


Agronomy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola Devasirvatham ◽  
Daniel Tan

Global climate change has caused severe crop yield losses worldwide and is endangering food security in the future. The impact of climate change on food production is high in Australia and globally. Climate change is projected to have a negative impact on crop production. Chickpea is a cool season legume crop mostly grown on residual soil moisture. High temperature and terminal drought are common in different regions of chickpea production with varying intensities and frequencies. Therefore, stable chickpea production will depend on the release of new cultivars with improved adaptation to major events such as drought and high temperature. Recent progress in chickpea breeding has increased the efficiency of assessing genetic diversity in germplasm collections. This review provides an overview of the integration of new approaches and tools into breeding programs and their impact on the development of stress tolerance in chickpea.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hashim Isam Jameel Al-Safi ◽  
Hamideh Kazemi ◽  
P. Ranjan Sarukkalige

Abstract The application of two distinctively different hydrologic models, (conceptual-HBV) and (distributed-BTOPMC), was compared to simulate the future runoff across three unregulated catchments of the Australian Hydrologic Reference Stations (HRSs), namely Harvey catchment in WA, and Beardy and Goulburn catchments in NSW. These catchments have experienced significant runoff reduction during the last decades due to climate change and human activities. The Budyko-elasticity method was employed to assign the influences of human activities and climate change on runoff variations. After estimating the contribution of climate change in runoff reduction from the past runoff regime, the downscaled future climate signals from a multi-model ensemble of eight global climate models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project phase-5 (CMIP5) under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios were used to simulate the future daily runoff at the three HRSs for the mid-(2046–2065) and late-(2080–2099) 21st-century. Results show that the conceptual model performs better than the distributed model in capturing the observed streamflow across the three contributing catchments. The performance of the models was relatively compatible in the overall direction of future streamflow change, regardless of the magnitude, and incompatible regarding the change in the direction of high and low flows for both future climate scenarios. Both models predicted a decline in wet and dry season's streamflow across the three catchments.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1680-1695
Author(s):  
AHMAD DWI SETYAWAN ◽  
JATNA SUPRIATNA ◽  
DEDY DARNAEDI ◽  
ROKHMATULOH ROKHMATULOH ◽  
SUTARNO SUTARNO ◽  
...  

Setyawan AD, Supriatna J, Darnaedi D, Rokhmatuloh, Sutarno, Sugiyarto, Nursamsi I, Komala WR, Pradan P. 2017. Impact of climate change on potential distribution of xero-epiphytic selaginellas (Selaginella involvens and S. repanda) in Southeast Asia. Biodiversitas 18: 1680-1695. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges for all life on earth, as it may become the dominant driver of changes in ecosystem services and biodiversity loss at the global level. Selaginella is a group of spike-mosses that seem easily affected by global warming (climate change) due to requiring water medium for fertilization. However, some species have been adapted to dry condition and may grow as epiphytes, such as S. involvens and S. repanda. Both species are commonly found in opposing a range of elevation. S. involvens is often found in high-altitude regions, whereas S. repanda is often found at lower-altitude regions. The difference in this altitudinal distributions is expected to limit redistribution mechanism of each species to adapt the climate change projections. This study model examines the potential geographic distribution of S. involvens and S. repanda under current climatic conditions and models the impact of projected climate change on their potential distribution. Future climate predictions are made with four detailed bioclimatic scenarios (i.e. RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, RCP 6.0, and RCP 8.5) and three-time intervals (2030, 2050, 2080), which combine various climatic factors. In this modeling, it can be concluded that S. involvens and S. repanda can adapt to future climate change, and continue to be sustainable, although it is strongly influenced and shifting habitat distribution in some areas.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Auwal F. Abdussalam ◽  
Andrew J. Monaghan ◽  
Daniel F. Steinhoff ◽  
Vanja M. Dukic ◽  
Mary H. Hayden ◽  
...  

Abstract Meningitis remains a major health burden throughout Sahelian Africa, especially in heavily populated northwest Nigeria with an annual incidence rate ranging from 18 to 200 per 100 000 people for 2000–11. Several studies have established that cases exhibit sensitivity to intra- and interannual climate variability, peaking during the hot and dry boreal spring months, raising concern that future climate change may increase the incidence of meningitis in the region. The impact of future climate change on meningitis risk in northwest Nigeria is assessed by forcing an empirical model of meningitis with monthly simulations of seven meteorological variables from an ensemble of 13 statistically downscaled global climate model projections from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Experiment (CMIP5) for representative concentration pathway (RCP) 2.6, 6.0, and 8.5 scenarios, with the numbers representing the globally averaged top-of-the-atmosphere radiative imbalance (in W m−2) in 2100. The results suggest future temperature increases due to climate change have the potential to significantly increase meningitis cases in both the early (2020–35) and late (2060–75) twenty-first century, and for the seasonal onset of meningitis to begin about a month earlier on average by late century, in October rather than November. Annual incidence may increase by 47% ± 8%, 64% ± 9%, and 99% ± 12% for the RCP 2.6, 6.0, and 8.5 scenarios, respectively, in 2060–75 with respect to 1990–2005. It is noteworthy that these results represent the climatological potential for increased cases due to climate change, as it is assumed that current prevention and treatment strategies will remain similar in the future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrej Ceglar ◽  
Andrea Toreti ◽  
Matteo Zampieri ◽  
Conxita Royo

&lt;p&gt;Durum wheat (&lt;em&gt;Triticum durum Desf.&lt;/em&gt;) is a minor cereal crop of key importance for making pasta, couscous, puddings, bread, and many other traditional foods, due to its physical and chemical characteristics. Durum wheat currently represents around 8% of the total wheat crop production, with the main cultivation region being concentrated in few suitable areas such as the Mediterranean Basin, the North American Great Plains, and the former USSR. The global demand for high-quality food made of durum wheat has been increasing, which poses a challenge in the face of climate change. The major share of durum wheat production is currently located in semi-arid climates, where the risk of climate extremes such as drought and heat stress will likely substantially increase in the future.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We develop a global climate suitability model for durum wheat growth based on Support Vector Machines. We use CMIP6 data to assess the impact of climate change on future suitability for growing durum wheat globally. The total share of global arable land, climatically suitable for growing rainfed durum wheat, currently represents roughly 13% of the global arable land. However, climate change may decrease this suitable area of 19% by mid-century and of 48% by the end of the century, considering also the gain of suitable land areas, where durum wheat is not cultivated today. This net loss of suitable areas requires the development and the future adoption of effective and sustainable strategies to stabilize production and adapt the entire food supply chain.&lt;/p&gt;


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Su ◽  
Benoît Gabrielle ◽  
David Makowski

Abstract Conservation agriculture (CA) is being promoted as a set of management practices that can sustain crop production while providing positive environmental externalities. However, its impact on crop productivity is still hotly debated, and how this productivity will be affected by climate change remains uncertain. Here we compared the productivity of CA vs. conventional tillage (CT) systems under current and future climate conditions using a probabilistic machine-learning approach at the global scale. We reveal large differences in the probability of yield gains with CA across crop types, climate zones, and geographical regions. We show that, for most crops, CA performed better in continental, arid and temperate regions than in tropical ones. Under future climate conditions, the relative productive performance of CA is expected to increase for maize in almost all cropping areas within the tropical band, thus improving the competitiveness of CA for this major crop.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 1962
Author(s):  
Zhilong Zhao ◽  
Yue Zhang ◽  
Zengzeng Hu ◽  
Xuanhua Nie

The alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are indicators of climate change. The assessment of lake dynamics on the TP is an important component of global climate change research. With a focus on lakes in the 33° N zone of the central TP, this study investigates the temporal evolution patterns of the lake areas of different types of lakes, i.e., non-glacier-fed endorheic lakes and non-glacier-fed exorheic lakes, during 1988–2017, and examines their relationship with changes in climatic factors. From 1988 to 2017, two endorheic lakes (Lake Yagenco and Lake Zhamcomaqiong) in the study area expanded significantly, i.e., by more than 50%. Over the same period, two exorheic lakes within the study area also exhibited spatio-temporal variability: Lake Gaeencuonama increased by 5.48%, and the change in Lake Zhamuco was not significant. The 2000s was a period of rapid expansion of both the closed lakes (endorheic lakes) and open lakes (exorheic lakes) in the study area. However, the endorheic lakes maintained the increase in lake area after the period of rapid expansion, while the exorheic lakes decreased after significant expansion. During 1988–2017, the annual mean temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.04 °C/a, while the annual precipitation slightly increased at a rate of 2.23 mm/a. Furthermore, the annual precipitation significantly increased at a rate of 14.28 mm/a during 1995–2008. The results of this study demonstrate that the change in precipitation was responsible for the observed changes in the lake areas of the two exorheic lakes within the study area, while the changes in the lake areas of the two endorheic lakes were more sensitive to the annual mean temperature between 1988 and 2017. Given the importance of lakes to the TP, these are not trivial issues, and we now need accelerated research based on long-term and continuous remote sensing data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Zhang ◽  
Lu-yu Liu ◽  
Yi Liu ◽  
Man Zhang ◽  
Cheng-bang An

AbstractWithin the mountain altitudinal vegetation belts, the shift of forest tree lines and subalpine steppe belts to high altitudes constitutes an obvious response to global climate change. However, whether or not similar changes occur in steppe belts (low altitude) and nival belts in different areas within mountain systems remain undetermined. It is also unknown if these, responses to climate change are consistent. Here, using Landsat remote sensing images from 1989 to 2015, we obtained the spatial distribution of altitudinal vegetation belts in different periods of the Tianshan Mountains in Northwestern China. We suggest that the responses from different altitudinal vegetation belts to global climate change are different. The changes in the vegetation belts at low altitudes are spatially different. In high-altitude regions (higher than the forest belts), however, the trend of different altitudinal belts is consistent. Specifically, we focused on analyses of the impact of changes in temperature and precipitation on the nival belts, desert steppe belts, and montane steppe belts. The results demonstrated that the temperature in the study area exhibited an increasing trend, and is the main factor of altitudinal vegetation belts change in the Tianshan Mountains. In the context of a significant increase in temperature, the upper limit of the montane steppe in the eastern and central parts will shift to lower altitudes, which may limit the development of local animal husbandry. The montane steppe in the west, however, exhibits the opposite trend, which may augment the carrying capacity of pastures and promote the development of local animal husbandry. The lower limit of the nival belt will further increase in all studied areas, which may lead to an increase in surface runoff in the central and western regions.


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