Impacts of climate change on best areas of nine crops in Cundinamarca - Colombia

Abstract

Because changes in rainfall and temperature conditions due to climate change are expected, for the department of Cundinamarca, which will affect crop development, it is necessary to identify them in the areas of food production that are the most important for food security under climate change scenarios, Such identification will allow the implementation of timely adaptation measures for most affected areas. We investigated the impact of climate change on the best areas of nine crops in Cundinamarca - Colombia. There were interpolate data for each crop according their optimum ranges of precipitation and temperature, and with the preposition of these variables it was determined the current area and spacialization of crops, as well as the projections for the periods 2011 – 2040 and 2070 – 2100 under A2 (pessimistic) y B2 (optimistic), climate change scenarios. Results showed that under new climatic conditions, the potato and vetch crops tend to disappear, while for rice crop, it would hope an increase on optimum areas of production. A2 2011 - 2040 and B2 2011 - 2040 scenarios would show a decrease near 74% of cultivable area for all nine crops, against A2 2070 - 2100 and B2 2070 – 2100 scenarios which indicate a rise of optimum area close to 5% in relation to current area.

Keywords

• agriculture
• climate change
• crops
• food security
• modeling
• yields