scholarly journals Impacts of Climate Change on Livestock Location in the US: A Statistical Analysis

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1260
Author(s):  
Minglu Wang ◽  
Bruce A. McCarl

Livestock production is a valuable part of US agriculture as it contributes 50% of total agricultural value. Climate change is likely a threat to livestock production, but research regarding the impact of climate change on livestock sectors is limited. This paper examines how climate change affects livestock mix and location. Specifically, we examine climate effects on grazing animals and, in particular, on beef cattle, dairy cattle, goats, and sheep. We examine this in the US based on county-level data by using fractional multinomial logit econometrics. Our results show that climate is an influential determinant of where livestock herds are located and species mix. The impacts of climate vary by species and region. We also find significant influences from geographic characteristics and animal product prices. Subsequently, we project how climate change would influence future livestock mix and location. It reveals a likely growth in beef cow land shares across most of the US with the largest gains in the northwest. We also find substitutions between species as climate change progresses with dairy cows exhibiting the largest reduction.

2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Moore ◽  
Afshin Ghahramani

Climate change is predicted to reduce the productivity of the broadacre livestock industries across southern Australia; to date there has been no formal evaluation of the potential of genetic improvement in cattle or sheep to ameliorate the impacts of changing climates. We used the GRAZPLAN simulation models to assess selection of five traits of sheep and cattle as adaptation options under the SRES A2 global change scenario. Analysis of the breeding strategies was carried out for 25 representative locations, five livestock enterprises and three future years (2030, 2050, 2070). Uncertainty in future climates was taken into account by considering projected climates from four global circulation models. For three sheep enterprises, breeding for greater fleece growth (at constant body size) was predicted to produce the greatest improvements in forage conversion efficiency, and so it was the most effective genetic adaptation option. For beef cow and steer enterprises, breeding for larger body size was most effective; for beef cows, however, this conclusion relied on per-animal costs (including provision of bulls) remaining stable as body size increases. Increased conception rates proved to be less effective but potentially viable as an adaptation in beef cow and crossbred ewe enterprises. In the southern Australian environments that were analysed, our modelling suggests that breeding for tolerance to heat stress is unlikely to improve the performance of livestock production systems even at 2070. Genetic improvement of livestock was able to recover much less of the impact of climate change on profitability at drier locations where the need for adaptation is likely to be greatest. Combinations of feedbase and livestock genetic adaptations are likely to complement one another as the former alter the amount of forage that can be consumed, while the latter affect the efficiency with which consumed forage is converted to animal products. Climate change impacts on pasture production across southern Australia are likely to have only small effects on methane emissions intensity, as are a range of candidate genetic and feedbase adaptations to climate change; methane emissions per hectare in future climates will therefore be driven mainly by changes in livestock numbers due to alterations in pasture productivity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 181-187
Author(s):  
Getachew Bekele Fereja

It is true that most proportions of Africans livestock production and productivities are declined when the climate condition is not comfortable. Therefore this review was conducted to show the impacts of climate change on livestock production and productivities. The climate change especially global warming may highly influence production performance of farm animals throughout the world. While there has been occasional mention, in the global discussion on climate change there has generally been a dearth of attention paid to the animal production and productivities impacts of the proposed abatement options and some of the suggested livestock management approaches would have severe and wide-ranging impacts on the animal’s products. This is on the background that the impact of climate change on crops is well known, much less is known about the impact of climate change on livestock. Unfortunately, livestock production and productivities assumes an overriding emphasis as one of the core sectors to solve the current food challenges and bringing future food sustainability in developing countries. Out of all the factors influencing livestock production, climate, and location are undoubtedly the most significant. Climate change will have far-reaching consequences for animal production, especially in vulnerable parts of the world where it is vital for nutrition and livelihoods. The impact of climate change can heighten the vulnerability of livestock systems and exacerbate existing stresses upon them, such as drought. Parasites and diseases are among the most severe factors that impact livestock production and productivity. Animal diseases have great impact on food supplies, trade and commerce, and human health globally. Animal genetic diversity is critical for food security and rural development. It allows farmers to select stocks or develop new breeds in response to changing conditions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 102 (7) ◽  
pp. 3761-3773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Deschênes ◽  
Michael Greenstone

Fisher et al. (2012)––henceforth, FHRS––have uncovered coding and data errors in our paper, Deschênes and Greenstone (2007), henceforth, DG. We acknowledge and are embarrassed by these mistakes. We are grateful to FHRS for uncovering them. We hope that this Reply will also contribute to advancing the literature on the vital question of the impact of climate change on the US agricultural sector.


1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. R. Nawaz ◽  
A. J. Adeloye ◽  
M. Montaseri

In this paper, we report on the results of an investigation into the impacts of climate change on the storage-yield relationships for two multiple-reservoir systems, one in England and the other in Iran. The impact study uses established protocol and obtains perturbed monthly inflow series using a simple runoff coefficient approach which accounts for non-evaporative losses in the catchment, and a number of recently published GCM-based scenarios. The multi-reservoir analysis is based on the sequent-peak algorithm which has been modified to analyse multiple reservoirs and to accommodate explicitly performance norms and reservoir surface fluxes, i.e. evaporation and rainfall. As a consequence, it was also possible to assess the effect of including reservoir surface fluxes on the storage-yield functions. The results showed that, under baseline conditions, consideration of net evaporation will require lower storages for the English system and higher storages for the Iranian system. However, with perturbed hydroclimatology different impacts were obtained depending on the systems' yield and reliability. Possible explanations are offered for the observed behaviours.


Significance The extreme cold comes as the province is still dealing with the damage caused by unprecedented levels of heat and wildfires last summer and then record levels of rainfall and flooding in November. Its experience has focused attention on Canada’s wider vulnerability to the impact of shifting weather patterns and climate change. Impacts The natural resource sectors that are vital to Canada’s economy face an increasingly difficult environment for extraction. Indigenous peoples across the country will see their traditional ways of life further disrupted by climate change. The increasingly evident impacts of climate change on day-to-day life will see voters demand greater action from government. Significant investment in green initiatives, clean energy and climate resiliency initiatives will boost green industries.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 2201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Zeng ◽  
Ming-Guo Ma ◽  
Dong-Rui Di ◽  
Wei-Yu Shi

Separating the impact of climate change and human activities on runoff is an important topic in hydrology, and a large number of methods and theories have been widely used. In this paper, we review the current papers on separating the impacts of climate and human activities on runoff, summarize the progress of relevant research methods and applications in recent years, and discuss future research needs and directions.


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