Vulnerability of maize, barley, and wheat yields to growing season temperature and socioeconomic indicators in Morocco

Abstract

In Morocco, the historical record depicts a situation characterized by increasing temperatures and diminishing precipitation, which often ends up in severe drought episodes. This research examines the vulnerability of wheat, barley, and maize to growing season temperature changes as well as socio-economic adaptive capacity proxies. This work uses a composite index of vulnerability that posits that the vulnerability index is a function of the exposure, sensitivity, and the adaptive capacity indexes. FAOSTAT and Yield Gap Atlas data were used for the period 1991-2016 to calculate the sensitivity index. The World Bank Climate Portal provided the mean annual growing season temperature data used to compute the exposure index. The World Bank, figshare, and MPR archives were used to capture the proxies of adaptive capacity such as literacy and poverty rates. These findings indicate that wheat has the lowest vulnerability index and the greatest adaptive capacity index, while barley has the strongest vulnerability and lowest adaptive capacity indexes. Sub-nationally, the indices of vulnerability and the standardized growing season's temperature decreased northwards. Northwards, wheat records the lowest vulnerability and highest adaptive capacity, and the second highest standard growing season temperature. In perspective, enhance adaptive capacity for climate resilience in policies, reduce vulnerability. HIGHLIGHTS Wheat shows the lowest vulnerability score and the greatest index of adaptive capacity.; The temperature of the growing season is a strong predictor of yield.; Sub-nationally, the indices of vulnerability and the standardized growing season's temperature decreased as one traveled northward.; With each latitude north, wheat records the lowest vulnerability and the greatest adaptive capacity indices.; Overall, vulnerability is highly influenced by adaptive capacity.;

Keywords

• adaptive capacity
• crop yield
• exposure
• temperature
• sensitivity
• vulnerability