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Perspective of agricultural water safety under combined future changes in crop water requirements and climate conditions in China

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Abstract

Agricultural water safety is foreseen to have more turmoil in the future, and this concern will be driven by agricultural production growth, population growth, and socioeconomic developments accompanied by climatic changes. Our study aimed to develop an index for regional water scarcity evaluation and quantify the present and future agricultural water stress in China. Changes in crop evapotranspiration (ETc) during the baseline period (1990–2015) and future periods (2020–2039, 2040–2059, 2060–2079, and 2080–2099) under two different scenarios (RCPs, 4.5 and 8.5) were introduced. Moreover, we evaluated the precipitation cultivation dependability index (PCDI) and agricultural water stress index (AWSI) in China from 1990 to 2099. A significant increase in ETc between the baseline and future projections will be more than 20 Gm3 in the south and southeastern provinces. The months from April to August shared a proportion that exceeded 70% of the yearly ETc. The PCDI during the autumn season was highest (full) and will increase significantly during all future scenarios, except during 2080–2099 of RCP8.5, which will record a non-significant reduction in the PCDI compared with the baseline. All provinces will have a significant increase in the PDCI under future projections except in 2080–2099 (RCP8.5) compared with the baseline. The AWSI over China recorded medium to high water stress (0.84) for the baseline, but it will increase significantly to very high-water stress (> 1) in all future scenarios. These results suggest that China should guarantee the sustainable use of agricultural water resources by reducing its crop water footprint and minimizing the influence of drought under a warming climate, e.g., via forest plantations.

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The data in this study are available within the paper and supporting information.

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Funding

China and the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFD0200100) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41672180), Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province of China (grant number 2019B030301007) and the Innovation Team Construction Project of Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System of Guangdong Province (2021KJ105), Zhang's fund if APC is needed to be paid from the fund.

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Author notes

  1. Ahmed I. Abdo and Ali Mokhtar contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, College of Natural Resources and Environment, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Ahmed I. Abdo, Hui Wei & Jiaen Zhang

  2. Soil Science Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Zagazig, 44511, Egypt

    Ahmed I. Abdo

  3. College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Ahmed I. Abdo & Linquan Wang

  4. Water Relation and Field Irrigation Department, Agriculture and Biological Division, National Research Centre, Giza, Egypt

    Ahmed E. Abdelghany

  5. Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, 12613, Egypt

    Ali Mokhtar

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  1. Ahmed I. Abdo
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  2. Ahmed E. Abdelghany
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Contributions

AIA presented the work idea, collected data, performed analysis, and wrote the first draft of manuscript. AEA collected data, designed the study, and performed analysis. HW designed the study and provided critical reviews in the final manuscript. LW wrote the final manuscript. JZ supervised, funded, and wrote the final manuscript. AM presented the work idea, collected data, performed analysis, and wrote the first draft of manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jiaen Zhang.

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Abdo, A.I., Abdelghany, A.E., Wei, H. et al. Perspective of agricultural water safety under combined future changes in crop water requirements and climate conditions in China. Theor Appl Climatol 148, 1629–1645 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-03994-w

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