Extreme drought and rainfall had a large impact on potato production in the Netherlands between 2015 and 2020

Abstract

Abstract Extreme weather events cause damage to crops. Quantifying their impact on crop yields in farmers’ fields however remains difficult, as empirical data generally lacks detail, preventing to unravel causal effects from soil and management practices. Here we exploit an observational dataset on potato production on sandy soils in the Netherlands and use a causal method employing a matching strategy to quantify the effect of extreme weather. We provide statistical evidence that drought and high-intensity rainfall in this region have large impact today, explaining 98% of the between-year yield differences. High-intensity rainfall led to a yield reduction of 36% and drought to 13%. Yields highly varied among fields, just as the impact of these weather extremes on individual fields. Identifying on which fields the impact is small provides direction for adaption strategies, which are urgently needed, considering the expected increased frequency of weather extremes according to the latest climate change scenarios.