Projected changes in East African climate and its impacts on climatic suitability of maize production areas by the mid-twenty-first century.

Autor: Ojara MA; Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China. ojacksmoz@gmail.com.; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Agricultural Meteorology, College of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China. ojacksmoz@gmail.com.; Directorate of Training and Research, Uganda National Meteorological Authority, Plot 21, 28 Port Bell Rd, P.O. Box 7025, Kampala, Uganda. ojacksmoz@gmail.com., Yunsheng L; Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Agricultural Meteorology, College of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China., Ongoma V; International Water Research Institute, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Lot 660, Hay Moulay Rachid, Ben Guerir, 43150, Morocco., Mumo L; Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Agricultural Meteorology, College of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China., Akodi D; National Agricultural Organization, NARO Uganda, P.O. Box 7065, Kampala, Uganda., Ayugi B; Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China., Ogwang BA; Directorate of Training and Research, Uganda National Meteorological Authority, Plot 21, 28 Port Bell Rd, P.O. Box 7025, Kampala, Uganda.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Environmental monitoring and assessment [Environ Monit Assess] 2021 Nov 19; Vol. 193 (12), pp. 831. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Nov 19.
DOI: 10.1007/s10661-021-09547-4
Abstrakt: Maize crop (Zea mays) is one of the staple foods in the East African (EA) region. However, the suitability of its production area is threatened by projected climate change. The Multimodel Ensemble (MME) from eight Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) models was used in this paper to show climate change between the recent past (1970-2000) and the future (2041-2060), i.e., the mid-twenty-first century. The climatic suitability of maize crop production areas is evaluated based on these climate datasets and the current maize crop presence points using Maximum entropy models (MaxEnt). The MME projection showed a slight increase in precipitation under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in certain places and a reduction in most of southern Tanzania. The temperature projection showed that the minimum temperature would increase by 0.3 to 2.95 °C and 0.3 to 3.2 °C under RCP4.5 and 8.5, respectively. Moreover, the maximum temperature would increase by 1.0 to 3.0 °C and 1.2 to 3.6 °C under RCP4.5 and 8.5 respectively. The impacts of these projected changes in climate on maize production areas are the reduction in the suitability of the crop, especially around central and western Tanzania, mid-northern and western Uganda, and parts of western Kenya by 20-40%, and patches of EA will experience a reduction of as high as 40-60%, especially in northern Uganda, and western Kenya. The projected changes in temperature and precipitation present a significant negative change in maize crop suitability. Thus, food security and the efforts towards the elimination of hunger in EA by the mid-twenty-first century will be hampered significantly. We recommend crop diversification to suit the new future environments, modernizing maize farming programs through the adoption of new technologies including irrigation, and climate-smart agricultural practices, etc.
(© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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