Impact of seasonal climatic variability on rice yield in Bangladesh

Abstract

In Bangladesh, 75% of the total cultivable area is under rice cultivation producing 25 million tons of rice and plays a vital role in the country’s GDP. The climatic variability is playing an important role in affecting the rice production. In this study, the impact of climatic variability (average maximum temperature (aMaxTemp), average minimum temperature (aMinTemp) and average rainfall (aRainfall)) on rice yield was determined in two different regions (northern and southern) of Bangladesh.The variability of rice yield and climate factors was determined by using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method. The data was analyzed over the 44-years period (1971 to 2014) in order to estimate the magnitude of these fluctuations statistically and graphically. We observed that the climate variables had significant effect on rice yield that varies among three rice crops (e.g., Aus, Aman, and Boro rice). We observed that, aMaxTemp has positive effects for Aus and Aman rice yield but negative effect on Boro rice yield. On the other hand, aMinTemp has negative effects on Aus and Aman rice yield but has positive effect on Boro rice yield. The aRainfall has a positive relationship with all rice yields in both the regions.

Keywords

• Rice yield, climate variability, test of normality, ordinary least square