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Webber, H., Gaiser, T., Oomen, R., Teixeira, E., Zhao, G., Wallach, D., et al. (2016). Uncertainty in future irrigation water demand and risk of crop failure for maize in Europe. Environ. Res. Lett., .
Abstract: While crop models are widely used to assess the change in crop productivity with climate change, their skill in assessing irrigation water demand or the risk of crop failure in large area impact assessments is relatively unknown. The objective of this study is to investigate which aspects of modeling crop water use (reference crop evapotranspiration (ET0), soil water extraction, soil evaporation, soil water balance and root growth) contributes most to the variability in estimates of maize crop water use and the risk of crop failure, and demonstrate the resulting uncertainty in a climate change impact study for Europe. The SIMPLACE crop modeling framework was used to couple the LINTUL5 crop model in factorial combinations of 2-3 different approaches for simulating the 5 aspects of crop water use, resulting in 51 modeling approaches. Using experiments in France and New Zeland, analysis of total sensitivity revealed that ET0 explained the most variability in both irrigated maize water use and rainfed grain yield levels, with soil evaporation also imporatant in the French experiment. In the European impact study, net irrigation requirement differed by 36% between the Penman and Hargreaves ET0 methods in the baseline period. Average EU grain yields were similar between models, but differences approached 1-2 tonnes in parts of France and Southern Europe. EU wide esimates of crop failure in the historical period ranged between 5.4 years for Priestley-Taylor to every 7.9 years for the Penman ET0 methods. While the uncertainty in absolute values between models was significant, estimates of relative changes were similar between models, confirming the utility of crop models in assessing climate change impacts. If ET0 estimates in crop models can be improved, through the use of appropriate methods, uncertainty in irrigation water demand as well as in yield estimates under drought can be reduced.
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Eyshi Rezaei, E., Webber, H., Gaiser, T., Naab, J., & Ewert, F. (2015). Heat stress in cereals: Mechanisms and modelling. European Journal of Agronomy, 64, 98–113.
Abstract: Increased climate variability and higher mean temperatures are expected across many world regions, both of which will contribute to more frequent extreme high temperatures events. Empirical evidence increasingly shows that short episodes of high temperature experienced around flowering can have large negative impacts on cereal grain yields, a phenomenon increasingly referred to as heat stress. Crop models are currently the best tools available to investigate how crops will grow under future climatic conditions, though the need to include heat stress effects has been recognized only relatively recently. We reviewed literature on both how key crop physiological processes and the observed yields under production conditions are impacted by high temperatures occurring particularly in the flowering and grain filling phases for wheat, maize and rice. This state of the art in crop response to heat stress was then contrasted with generic approaches to simulate the impacts of high temperatures in crop growth models. We found that the observed impacts of heat stress on crop yield are the end result of the integration of many processes, not all of which will be affected by a “high temperature” regime. This complexity confirms an important role for crop models in systematizing the effects of high temperatures on many processes under a range of environments and realizations of crop phenology. Four generic approaches to simulate high temperature impacts on yield were identified: (1) empirical reduction of final yield, (2) empirical reduction in daily increment in harvest index, (3) empirical reduction in grain number, and (4) semi-deterministic models of sink and source limitation. Consideration of canopy temperature is suggested as a promising approach to concurrently account for heat and drought stress, which are likely to occur simultaneously. Improving crop models’ response to high temperature impacts on cereal yields will require experimental data representative of field production and should be designed to connect what is already known about physiological responses and observed yield impacts. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Webber, H., Ewert, F., Kimball, B. A., Siebert, S., White, J. W., Wall, G. W., et al. (2016). Simulating canopy temperature for modelling heat stress in cereals. Env. Model. Softw., 77, 143–155.
Abstract: Crop models must be improved to account for the effects of heat stress events on crop yields. To date, most approaches in crop models use air temperature to define heat stress intensity as the cumulative sum of thermal times (TT) above a high temperature threshold during a sensitive period for yield formation. However, observational evidence indicates that crop canopy temperature better explains yield reductions associated with high temperature events than air temperature does. This study presents a canopy level energy balance using Monin ObukhovSimilarity Theory (MOST) with simplifications about the canopy resistance that render it suitable for application in crop models and other models of the plant environment. The model is evaluated for a uniform irrigated wheat canopy in Arizona and rainfed maize in Burkina Faso. No single variable regression relationships for key explanatory variables were found that were consistent across sowing dates to explain the deviation of canopy temperature from air temperature. Finally, thermal times determined with simulated canopy temperatures were able to reproduce thermal times calculated with observed canopy temperature, whereas those determined with air temperatures were not. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Webber, H., Zhao, G., Wolf, J., Britz, W., Vries, W. de, Gaiser, T., et al. (2015). Climate change impacts on European crop yields: Do we need to consider nitrogen limitation. European Journal of Agronomy, 71, 123–134.
Abstract: Global climate impact studies with crop models suggest that including nitrogen and water limitation causes greater negative climate change impacts on actual yields compared to water-limitation only. We simulated water limited and nitrogen water limited yields across the EU-27 to 2050 for six key crops with the SIMPLACE<LINTUL5, DRUNIR, HEAT> model to assess how important consideration of nitrogen limitation is in climate impact studies for European cropping systems. We further investigated how crop nitrogen use may change under future climate change scenarios. Our results suggest that inclusion of nitrogen limitation hardly changed crop yield response to climate for the spring-sown crops considered (grain maize, potato, and sugar beet). However, for winter-sown crops (winter barley, winter rapeseed and winter wheat), simulated impacts to 2050 were more negative when nitrogen limitation was considered, especially with high levels of water stress. Future nitrogen use rates are likely to decrease due to climate change for spring-sown crops, largely in parallel with their yields. These results imply that climate change impact studies for winter-sown crops should consider N-fertilization. Specification of future N fertilization rates is a methodological challenge that is likely to need integrated assessment models to address.
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Zhao, G., Webber, H., Hoffmann, H., Wolf, J., Siebert, S., & Ewert, F. (2015). The implication of irrigation in climate change impact assessment: a European-wide study. Glob. Chang. Biol., 21(11), 4031–4048.
Abstract: This study evaluates the impacts of projected climate change on irrigation requirements and yields of six crops (winter wheat, winter barley, rapeseed, grain maize, potato, and sugar beet) in Europe. Furthermore, the uncertainty deriving from consideration of irrigation, CO2 effects on crop growth and transpiration, and different climate change scenarios in climate change impact assessments is quantified. Net irrigation requirement (NIR) and yields of the six crops were simulated for a baseline (1982-2006) and three SRES scenarios (B1, B2 and A1B, 2040-2064) under rainfed and irrigated conditions, using a process-based crop model, SIMPLACE <LINTUL5, DRUNIR, HEAT>. We found that projected climate change decreased NIR of the three winter crops in northern Europe (up to 81 mm), but increased NIR of all the six crops in the Mediterranean regions (up to 182 mm yr(-1)). Climate change increased yields of the three winter crops and sugar beet in middle and northern regions (up to 36%), but decreased their yields in Mediterranean countries (up to 81%). Consideration of CO2 effects can alter the direction of change in NIR for irrigated crops in the south and of yields for C3 crops in central and northern Europe. Constraining the model to rainfed conditions for spring crops led to a negative bias in simulating climate change impacts on yields (up to 44%), which was proportional to the irrigation ratio of the simulation unit. Impacts on NIR and yields were generally consistent across the three SRES scenarios for the majority of regions in Europe. We conclude that due to the magnitude of irrigation and CO2 effects, they should both be considered in the simulation of climate change impacts on crop production and water availability, particularly for crops and regions with a high proportion of irrigated crop area.
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