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Assessing the impact of global climate changes on irrigated wheat yields and water requirements in a semi-arid environment of Morocco

Bouras, Elhoussaine LU orcid ; Jarlan, Lionel ; Khabba, Said ; Er-Raki, Salah ; Dezetter, Alain ; Sghir, Fathallah and Tramblay, Yves (2019) In Scientific Reports 9(1).
Abstract

The present work aims to quantify the impact of climate change (CC) on the grain yields of irrigated cereals and their water requirements in the Tensift region of Morocco. The Med-CORDEX (MEDiterranean COordinated Regional Climate Downscaling EXperiment) ensemble runs under scenarios RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway) and RCP8.5 are first evaluated and disaggregated using the quantile-quantile approach. The impact of CC on the duration of the main wheat phenological stages based on the degree-day approach is then analyzed. The results show that the rise in air temperature causes a shortening of the development cycle of up to 50 days. The impacts of rising temperature and changes in precipitation on wheat yields are next... (More)

The present work aims to quantify the impact of climate change (CC) on the grain yields of irrigated cereals and their water requirements in the Tensift region of Morocco. The Med-CORDEX (MEDiterranean COordinated Regional Climate Downscaling EXperiment) ensemble runs under scenarios RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway) and RCP8.5 are first evaluated and disaggregated using the quantile-quantile approach. The impact of CC on the duration of the main wheat phenological stages based on the degree-day approach is then analyzed. The results show that the rise in air temperature causes a shortening of the development cycle of up to 50 days. The impacts of rising temperature and changes in precipitation on wheat yields are next evaluated, based on the AquaCrop model, both with and without taking into account the fertilizing effect of CO2. As expected, optimal wheat yields will decrease on the order of 7 to 30% if CO2 concentration rise is not considered. The fertilizing effect of CO2 can counterbalance yield losses, since optimal yields could increase by 7% and 13% respectively at mid-century for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Finally, water requirements are expected to decrease by 13 to 42%, mainly in response to the shortening of the cycle. This decrease is associated with a change in temporal patterns, with the requirement peak coming two months earlier than under current conditions.

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author
; ; ; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Scientific Reports
volume
9
issue
1
article number
19142
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • pmid:31844076
  • scopus:85076510748
ISSN
2045-2322
DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-55251-2
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Funding Information: This research was conducted within the frame of the International Joint Laboratory TREMA (http://trema. ucam.ac.ma). Funding were provided by SAGESSE PPR/2015/48 ‘Système d’Aide à la décision pour la GEstion des reSSources en Eau’, the European Commission Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation (H2020) in the context of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) action (ACCWA project, grant agreement no. 823965), ERANETMED3-062 CHAAMS ‘global CHange: Assessment and Adaptation to Mediterranean region water Scarcity’ and the MISTRALS/SICMED program. E.B. received a mobility grant from the PHC Toubkal #39064WG/2018. Publisher Copyright: © 2019, The Author(s).
id
01b13119-772e-40d8-932e-55bc76409b85
date added to LUP
2023-01-04 09:52:39
date last changed
2024-04-18 18:19:54
@article{01b13119-772e-40d8-932e-55bc76409b85,
  abstract     = {{<p>The present work aims to quantify the impact of climate change (CC) on the grain yields of irrigated cereals and their water requirements in the Tensift region of Morocco. The Med-CORDEX (MEDiterranean COordinated Regional Climate Downscaling EXperiment) ensemble runs under scenarios RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway) and RCP8.5 are first evaluated and disaggregated using the quantile-quantile approach. The impact of CC on the duration of the main wheat phenological stages based on the degree-day approach is then analyzed. The results show that the rise in air temperature causes a shortening of the development cycle of up to 50 days. The impacts of rising temperature and changes in precipitation on wheat yields are next evaluated, based on the AquaCrop model, both with and without taking into account the fertilizing effect of CO<sub>2</sub>. As expected, optimal wheat yields will decrease on the order of 7 to 30% if CO<sub>2</sub> concentration rise is not considered. The fertilizing effect of CO<sub>2</sub> can counterbalance yield losses, since optimal yields could increase by 7% and 13% respectively at mid-century for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Finally, water requirements are expected to decrease by 13 to 42%, mainly in response to the shortening of the cycle. This decrease is associated with a change in temporal patterns, with the requirement peak coming two months earlier than under current conditions.</p>}},
  author       = {{Bouras, Elhoussaine and Jarlan, Lionel and Khabba, Said and Er-Raki, Salah and Dezetter, Alain and Sghir, Fathallah and Tramblay, Yves}},
  issn         = {{2045-2322}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{12}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Scientific Reports}},
  title        = {{Assessing the impact of global climate changes on irrigated wheat yields and water requirements in a semi-arid environment of Morocco}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55251-2}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41598-019-55251-2}},
  volume       = {{9}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}