Quantifying Impacts of Future Climate on the Crop Water Requirement, Growth Period, and Drought on the Agricultural Watershed, in Ethiopia

Abstract

Quantifying the influence of climate change on the crop growth period, water requirement, and drought conditions is essential for integrated crop production system planning. In this study, the effects of climate models from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Product (CMIP5) on Crop Water Requirement (CWR), Length of Growth Period (LGP), and drought conditions were quantified for Lake Hawassa watershed in Ethiopia. In this study, two regional climate models were selected that showed better performance on the evaluation criteria after applying a quantile mapping bias correction procedure. The impact analysis was conducted for two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) (RCP4.5 and RCP 8.5). Drought analysis was performed using the standardized anomalies of rainfall (S-index). The future growing season of the area is projected to be between April 15 and May 1 on average for all years. The total crop water requirement was projected to increase to a value of 3,258.7 mm on average under both the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios for all the stages at the end of 2080s from its baseline value of 3,180.4 mm. In addition, the drought forecast analysis shows extreme drought with S-index values <−1.6 in the 2050s and 2080s under RCP 8.5. Of all the time periods, the 2050s recorded the smallest number of years (10 out of 30 years) with a positive S-index value, indicating projected precipitation shortages during these time periods under RCP 8.5. With this result, the combined impacts of climate change on crop production factors are expected to be high in the region. The results suggest an early warning for the study region considering low economic and technological development as in many developing parts of the world. Therefore, understanding the future changes in climate variables and their impacts can be an important input for developing a better plan for adaptation and mitigation measures.