Climate Change Scenarios and the Dragon Fruit Climatic Zoning in Brazil
Abstract BACKGROUND:The presente paper aims to compute climatological zones apt for the cultivation of pitaya based on trends in the occurrence of climate change events from the IPCC in Brazil. We used temperature and precipitation data from 4,942 cities collected on the NASA / POWER platform from 1990 to 2020 to elaborate on the current scenario. The climate change scenarios were obtained using the CHELSA platform (Climatologies at high resolution for the earth's land surface areas) and corresponded to the periods 2041-2060 and 2061-2080 associated with four IPCC climate change scenarios. The spatialization and interpolation of data occurred according to the aptitude classes designed to meet the thermal and water needs of the crop. RESULTS: Forecasts of increase in temperature indices and reduction in accumulated rainfall were found in all Brazil, but with greater impact in the North and Northeast regions, which had the greatest reduction in areas at low risk for the cultivation of pitaya. In the South and Southeast regions, a large part of the areas remained suitable for the production of this fruit until 2080. CONCLUSION:The results suggest that climate change does not benefit the cultivation of pitaya in some regions of Brazil because the dimensions of the areas apt for economic production be restricted.