Crop yield sensitivity of global major agricultural countries to droughts and the projected changes in the future
Open accessAbstract
Understanding the potential drought impacts on agricultural production is critical for ensuring global food security. Instead of providing a deterministic estimate, this study investigates the likelihood of yield loss of wheat, maize, rice and soybeans in response to droughts of various intensities in the 10 largest producing countries. We use crop-country specific standardized precipitation index (SPI) and census yield data for 1961–2016 to build a probabilistic modeling framework for estimating yield loss risk under a moderate (−1.2 < SPI < −0.8), severe (−1.5 < SPI < −1.3), extreme (−1.9 < SPI < −1.6) and exceptional (SPI < −2.0) drought. Results show that there is >80% probability that wheat production will fall below its long-term average when experiencing an exceptional drought, especially in USA and Canada. As for maize, India shows the highest risk of yield reduction under droughts, while rice is the crop that is most vulnerable to droughts in Vietnam and Thailand. Risk of drought-driven soybean yield loss is the highest in USA, Russian and India. Yield loss risk tends to grow faster when experiencing a shift in drought severity from moderate to severe than that from extreme to the exceptional category, demonstrating the non-linear response of yield to the increase in drought severity. Sensitivity analysis shows that temperature plays an important role in determining drought impacts, through reducing or amplifying drought-driven yield loss risk. Compared to present conditions, an ensemble of 11 crop models simulated an increase in yield loss risk by 9%–12%, 5.6%–6.3%, 18.1%–19.4% and 15.1%–16.1 for wheat, maize, rice and soybeans by the end of 21st century, respectively, without considering the benefits of CO 2 fertilization and adaptations. This study highlights the non-linear response of yield loss risk to the increase in drought severity. This implies that adaptations should be more targeted, considering not only the crop type and region but also the specific drought severity of interest.
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Water is a major resource that determines the productivity of all agricultural systems, including maize in the U.S. corn-belt.
“Water is a major resource that determines the productivity of all agricultural systems, including maize in the U.S. corn-belt”
From Integrating genetic gain and gap analysis to predict improvements in crop productivity (2020) · cites this paper as Leng & Hall, 2019
The Introduction describes drought as a major constraint on crop yields, and the Results report an association between drought and reduced yields for the four crops studied, including maize. The paper does not establish that water determines productivity in all agricultural systems, and its specific U.S. maize example concerns the Great Plains rather than the Corn Belt. Page numbers are not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Integrating genetic gain and gap analysis to predict improvements in crop productivity
Cooper, M., Tang, T., Gho, C., Hart, T., Hammer, G., & Messina, C. (2020) · Crop Science · doi:10.1002/csc2.20109 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
Probabilistic assessment of extreme heat stress on Indian wheat yields under climate change
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- Authors
- Leng, G., & Hall, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Leng, Guoyong
- Venue
- Science of The Total Environment
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-03
- Volume
- 654
- Pages
- 811-821
- ISSN
- 0048-9697 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6341212
- OpenAlex
- W2899848994
- Cited by
- 729
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 106 · 2025: 131 · 2024: 99 · 2023: 115 · 2022: 114 · 2021: 88 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 34.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- The Science of The Total Environment (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (205212/Z/16/Z)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Climate change impacts on agriculture
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Hydrology and Drought Analysis
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Agricultural risk and resilience
- Keywords
- wheat, maize, rice, soybean, drought severity, Standardized Precipitation Index, food security, temperature effects on drought, agricultural adaptation
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Physiological, Models, Theoretical, Temperature, Crops, Agricultural, Droughts, Climate Change
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