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A Review on the Impact of Climate Change on Crop Production in Humid

Tropics

Article · October 2017

DOI: 10.23959/sfjgw-1000002

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 Raneesh KY, SF J Glob Warm, 2017, 1:1

SciFed Journal of Global Warming

Review Article Open Access

A Review on the Impact of Climate Change on Crop Production in Humid

Tropics
*1
Raneesh KY
*1
Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Sri Sakthi Institute of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Abstract
India is a developing nation with majority of agricultural population and high cultivation area when compared
to the other developing countries. Around 93 percent of the farmers are small farmers having land holdings of less than
4 hectare. The average farm size is only 1.57 hectares and they cultivate nearly 55 percent of the available land. Due to
industrial growth in India, a large number of industrial units were started in the past decades. In recent years, climate
change has also become a complex issue. The climate changes affect the existing cultivating areas due to unscheduled
rainfall, high temperature, increase in soil temperature, and so on. This research study is to make an assessment about
the effects of shifts in rainfall trends and high temperature on the crop production in a watershed. Also an alteration in
irrigation scheduling is also proposed for the changing trends in rainfall pattern in the future.

Keywords increasing population, rapid urbanization, projected

Climate change; Watershed; Crop production;
Irrigation scheduling
Introduction
Climate change affects all the livelihood in our
daily lives, impacts the performance of much of industry,
and leads to billions of pounds of damage worldwide each
year. In many countries the general public is becoming
concerned as press reports, personal experience and
scientific information all point to an increase in the
frequency and severity of extreme weather events linked
to climate change. In recent years the phrase climate
change has become familiar as environmental extremes
regularly hit the headlines. The United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) uses the term to
describe change brought about only by human activities,
in particular by those processes that emit the heat-trapping
gases carbon dioxide and methane into the air. A more
climate change and consequent changes expected in the
hydrologic cycle, the use of toxic chemicals in various
land-use activities, and the increasing incidence of natural
disasters. Among these, the impacts of global warming
and consequent projected climate change due to the
increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs)
in the atmosphere on water resources have emerged as a
matter of grave concern to water resource managers and
decision-makers. Human activities and changes in land
cover and use are believed to be the primary cause of
build-up in the atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. This
alters the energy balance and tends to warm the atmosphere
*Corresponding author: Raneesh KY, Associate Professor, Department of
Agricultural Engineering, Sri Sakthi Institute of Engineering & Technology,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. E-mail: drraneesh@siet.ac.in
Received June 6, 2017; Accepted August 14, 2017; Published August 25,
2017

generic usage, common in the scientific community, refers
to change brought about by any source, human as well as
natural.
Water resources planning and management in the
21 century is becoming an increasingly difficult task due
st
to conflicting demands from various stakeholder groups,
Citation: Raneesh KY (2017) A Review on the Impact of Climate Change
on Crop Production in Humid Tropics. SF J Glob Warm1:1.
Copyright: © 2017 Raneesh KY. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original author and source are credited.

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 Citation: Raneesh KY (2017) A Review on the Impact of Climate Change on Crop Production in Humid Tropics. SF J Glob Warm1:1.
resulting in climate change. The observed increase in
globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century
is believed to be very likely due to the observed increase
in GHG concentrations [19] Reports indicate that the mean
annual global surface temperature has increased by about
0.3 - 0.6oC since the late 19th century and it is anticipated
to increase further by 1 – 3.5°C over the next 100 years
[20]. Such changes will have significant impact on local
and regional hydrological regimes, which will, in turn,
affect ecological, social and economic systems. Changes
in the temperature and precipitation components of the
hydrologic cycle will directly affect the evapotranspiration
component, as well as the quality and quantity of the runoff
component of the hydrologic cycle. Consequently, spatial
and temporal water resource availability, or in general,
the water balance, can be significantly affected, with
consequent impact on sectors like agriculture, industry and
urban development [18]. With economic development and
increase in population, the conflict between water demand
and water supply will become increasingly grave in the
future [17].
Over the last decade, scientists have extensively
studied the greenhouse effect, which holds that the
accumulation of CO2 and other GHGs is expected to
produce global warming and other significant climatic
changes over the next century. Numerous studies indicate
major impacts on agriculture especially, if there is
significant mid-continental drying and warming in Indian
soil. The earth’s surface temperature is slowly rising due to
human activities, which are releasing heat-trapping gases,
notably carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere.
Fossil fuel burning and deforestation have emerged as
principal anthropogenic sources of rising CO2 and other
GHGs and consequential global warming. Proxy records
of variability in temperature, precipitation, sea level
and extreme weather events provide collateral evidence
of global climate change. Indeed, there is compelling,
comprehensive, consistent, and objective evidence that
human beings are altering the climate in ways that threaten
our societies and the ecosystems.
Need and importance of the study
India is a large agricultural country with a high
population. During the historic development of several
thousand years large areas of forest and grassland have
been converted into arable lands. At present, a number of
bioclimatic models have been used to assess the potential
impacts of climate change on the distribution of major
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ecosystem complexes on a global scale. However, all these
global models have significant limitations for recognizing
important seasonal and local aspects of vegetation and
climate. Changes in temperature and precipitation will alter
the hydrological cycle, which influences runoff, moisture
availability, sedimentation and erosion and, furthermore,
the recycling of organic matter and nutrients of the soil.
Thus, it is necessary to investigate the impact of global
warming on cultivation and crop production in the study
area. Also it may also be interesting to study the changes
in irrigation scheduling needed for improving the crop
production in the watershed. Thus changing the scheduled
irrigation may also be needed for better crop production.
Changes in temperature and precipitation will alter
the hydrological cycle, which influences runoff, moisture
availability, sedimentation and erosion and, furthermore,
the recycling of organic matter and nutrients of the soil.
Thus, it is necessary to investigate the impact of global
warming on cultivation and crop production in the study
area. Also it may also be interesting to study the changes
in irrigation scheduling needed for improving the crop
production in the watershed. Thus changing the scheduled
irrigation may also be needed for better crop production.
Several studies have estimated the likely impacts
of future climate on crop production [2, 5, 30, 22, 37,
38]. However, the impacts on crop production due to
historic climate trends are yet to be widely studied. Also
an investigation into the impact of future climate data on
crop production is also to be studied. In the developing
countries, the impact of climate change is often locally
specific and hard to predict [24]. The relationships
between climate and crop production are generally scale
dependent [37]. Climate conditions during the flowering
and yield formation stages of crop growth impact crop
yields considerably. Relatively inexpensive adaptation
measures such as change in planting dates to avoid higher
temperature stress during the flowering and grain filling
stages can reduce the adverse impact on crop yields due to
climate change. Similarly, management strategies such as,
crop rotation, use of improved crop varieties and increased
irrigated agriculture are expected to help minimize the
risk associated with yield variability under future climatic
conditions. Event-based research on climate extremes
will contribute substantially to the debate as to whether
climate changes are relevant to crop production with long-
term ecological impacts. Collaborative scientific efforts
will contribute to the understanding of the role of climate
change and its impacts into the agricultural areas.
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 Citation: Raneesh KY (2017) A Review on the Impact of Climate Change on Crop Production in Humid Tropics. SF J Glob Warm1:1.
Results and Discussions
To achieve food security under climate change,
it is important to sustain or enhance both crop yield and
its stability. Here, impacts of climate have been evaluated
by lot of researchers in terms of total gain or loss in crop
yields. Some studies have shown that crop yields are likely
to be more volatile with increase in climate variability
under future climatic condition [2, 5, 22, 38, and 39].
Therefore, some potential benefits of climate change in
total crop production may be countered by the increased
year-to-year variability, leading to instability of long-term
food supply. Some studies on climate change provides
useful information that higher the magnitude of negative
impacts of historical climate on crop yields, faster the
adaptation measures have to be implemented to offset
the yield loss. Increasing temperature trends show mostly
negative impacts on these crop yields except at some high
altitudes. If the observed trends in temperature continue
in future, the impacts are likely to be mostly negative on
crop production in the basin. However, crop production
may gain from the warming at relatively higher altitudes
provided other conditions, such as water availability, soil
fertility, etc., are favorable.
Climate conditions during the flowering and
yield formation stages of crop growth impact crop
yields considerably. Relatively inexpensive adaptation
measures such as change in planting dates to avoid higher
temperature stress during the flowering and grain filling
stages can reduce the adverse impact on crop yields due to
climate change. Similarly, management strategies such as,
crop rotation, use of improved crop varieties and increased
irrigated agriculture are expected to help minimize the
risk associated with yield variability under future climatic
conditions. Additionally, in the future, farmers may tend
to grow crops at higher altitudes as a positive impact of
warming. It is expected that by the end of this century,
an annual global average temperature will increase by 1o
to 3oC [20] Despite underlying uncertainty, such projected
rise in temperature is generally expected to amplify the
estimated adverse impacts on crop production and add
pressure to the food supply. Thus, it is concluded that
research have shown that reduction in crop production
in large and ecologically diverse basins due to climate
change, will worsen the food security at the national level.
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