An approach for Identifying Optimal Solutions for Adapting Agricultural Land Management to Climate Change

Year 2017, Volume: 12 Issue: 4, 277 - 284, 30.12.2017

Adriana Zyfi Spiro Grazhdani Alma Ahmeti

Abstract

In many regions of the world, climate change is expected to have severe
impacts on agricultural systems. As many previous impact studies suggest,
yields could decrease, water resources may decline, and erosion risk could
increase. Climate change is likely to alter agro-climatic conditions with
distinct regional patterns, which necessitates adaptation measures that are
adjusted to local characteristics. The objective of this study was to identify
agricultural land management adaptation measures with regard to indicators
reflecting major aspects of four important agricultural functions: crop yield,
soil erosion by water, nutrient leaching, and water use. Changes in land
management are one way to adapt to future climatic conditions, including
declining water resources. Systematic explorations of land management
possibilities using optimization approaches were so far mainly restricted to
studies of land and resource management under constant climatic conditions. In
this study, we bridge this gap and exploit the benefits of multi-objective
regional optimization for identifying optimum land management adaptations to
climate change. We consider two climate scenarios for 2050 in the Lakes Prespa
watershed. We designed a multi-objective optimization routine that integrates a
generic crop model in combination with spatial information on soil, climate
conditions and slope at a 500 m x 500 m resolution. The results demonstrate
that even under the more extreme climate scenario compromise solutions
maintaining productivity at the current level with minimum environmental
impacts in terms of erosion and nitrogen leaching are possible. Necessary management
changes include (i) adjustments of crop shares, i.e. increasing the proportion
of early harvested winter cereals at the expense of irrigated spring crops,
(ii) widespread use of reduced tillage, and (iii) allocation of irrigated areas
to soils with low water-retention capacity at lower elevations. It is concluded
that the potential for climate change adaptation at the regional scale is
significant. Overall, this study shows that negative climate change impacts on
agro-ecosystems can be limited to a large extent by adaptation. However, such
adaptation measures are expected to cause a sharp increase in the region’s
agricultural water demand. The results could serve as basis for planners and
decision makers to develop suitable regional land use strategies.

Keywords

agricultural land management, climate change adaptation, CropSys model, multi-objective regional optimization

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