IWRA World Water Congress 2008 Montpellier France
3. Climate Change and Disasters
Author(s): Junguo Liu
Hong Yang
Dr. Junguo Liu is a researcher at Swiss Federal
Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), P.O. Box 611, Ueberlandstrass133, CH-8600
Duebendorf, Switzerland. His research interests focus on climate change, global water scarcity, water-food relat
Keyword(s): climate change, crop
production, China
Article: PDFAbstractIrrigation is by far the largest water user in China. Irrigation water requirement of different crops may greatly
affected by global climate change, but little research has been done in this theme covering the entire China with high
spatial resolution. In this study, a spatial explicit GEPIC (GIS-based Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) model
was used to study the impacts of climate change on irrigation water requirement of wheat with spatial resolution of
30 arc-minutes. Monthly climate change projections were used from the Hadley Centre’s general circulation model,
HadCM3, using scenarios A2a, B2a, and GGa1 for the periods of 1950-1999 and 2070-2099. Projected changes
in monthly precipitation and temperature distributions between the two periods were incorporated into daily weather
series by means of a stochastic weather generator in the GEPIC model. The study points out hotspots with
significantly increasing irrigation water requirement due to climate change. These regions need effective adoption and
mitigation measures in the future to combat water scarcity for secure wheat production.