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Climate change impacts on European arable crop yields: Sensitivity to assumptions about rotations and residue management
Most large scale studies assessing climate change impacts on crops are performed with simulations of single crops and with annual re-initialization of the initial soil conditions. This is in contrast to the reality that crops are grown in rotations, often with sizable proportion of the preceding crop residue to be left in the fields and varying soil initial conditions from year to year. In this study, the sensitivity of climate change impacts on crop yield and soil organic carbon to assumptions about annual model re-initialization, specification of crop rotations and the amount of residue retained in fields was assessed for seven main crops across Europe. Simulations were conducted for a scenario period 2040–2065 relative to a baseline from 1980 to 2005 using the SIMPLACE1 framework. Results indicated across Europe positive climate change impacts on yield for C3 crops and negative impacts for maize. The consideration of simulating rotations did not have a benefit on yield variability but on relative yield change in response to climate change which slightly increased for C3 crops and decreased for C4 crops when rotation was considered. Soil organic carbon decreased under climate change in both simulations assuming a continuous monocrop and plausible rotations by between 1% and 2% depending on the residue management strategy.
Impacts of climate change on global food trade networks
Countries’ reliance on global food trade networks implies that regionally different climate change impacts on crop yields will be transmitted across borders. This redistribution constitutes a significant challenge for climate adaptation planning and may affect how countries engage in cooperative action. This paper investigates the long-term (2070-2099) potential impacts of climate change on global food trade networks of three key crops: wheat, rice and maize. We propose a simple network model to project how climate change impacts on crop yields may be translated into changes in trade. Combining trade and climate impact data, our analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we use network community detection to analyse how the concentration of global production in present-day trade communities may become disrupted with climate change impacts. Second, we study how countries may change their network position following climate change impacts. Third, we study the total climate-induced change in production plus import within trade communities. Results indicate that the stability of food trade network structures compared to today differs between crops, and that countries’ maize trade is least stable under climate change impacts. Results also project that threats to global food security may depend on production change in a few major global producers, and whether trade communities can balance production and import loss in some vulnerable countries. Overall, our model contributes a baseline analysis of cross-border climate impacts on food trade networks.