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Climate factors during key periods affect the comprehensive crop losses due to drought in Southern China

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Abstract

Southern China is a major grain-producing area, but has been suffering from increasingly serious droughts caused by global warming. As a result, crop losses have become serious. To provide insights into these losses, we obtained data to support a systematic and comprehensive analysis of how agricultural drought has caused crop losses from 1961 to 2011 and of the relationship between these changes and the climatic factors responsible for the losses. We found an obvious increase in the loss of crops due to agricultural drought in southern China, with the greatest increase in crop loss in the southwest and smaller increases in the south and southeast. Moreover, because each crop growth stage is affected differently by climatic factors and because the values of these factors show an uneven seasonal distribution, the losses were greatest when changes in various climatic factors occurred during key crop developmental periods. The fittings of the relationship between crop loss and various climatic factors was often strongest based on data from key developmental periods rather than based on data for the whole year. In addition, we found improved prediction of losses using multiple regression, and developed a model for assessing crop losses. Our results provide a scientific reference for developing methods to evaluate the losses caused by agricultural drought in southern China.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge funding from National Key Basic Research and Development (973) Program of China (2013CB430206) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41630426, 41605090). Study data were obtained from the National Climate Center and China Meteorological Data Sharing Service Network (http://data.cma.cn).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reducing Disaster of Gansu Province/Key Open Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reducing Disaster of China Meteorological Administration (CMA), Lanzhou Institute of Arid Meteorology, CMA, Lanzhou, 730020, China

    Qiang Zhang & Jian Zeng

  2. Meteorology Bureau of Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730020, China

    Qiang Zhang

  3. Lanzhou Regional Climate Center, No. 2070, East Donggang Road, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Lanying Han, Xing Wang & Jingjing Lin

Authors
  1. Qiang Zhang
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  2. Lanying Han
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  3. Jian Zeng
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  4. Xing Wang
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  5. Jingjing Lin
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Correspondence to Qiang Zhang or Lanying Han.

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Zhang, Q., Han, L., Zeng, J. et al. Climate factors during key periods affect the comprehensive crop losses due to drought in Southern China. Clim Dyn 55, 2313–2325 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05379-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05379-z

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