Robust negative impacts of climate change on African agriculture
Open accessAbstract
There is widespread interest in the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and on the most effective investments to assist adaptation to these changes, yet the scientific basis for estimating production risks and prioritizing investments has been quite limited.Here we show that by combining historical crop production and weather data into a panel analysis, a robust model of yield response to climate change emerges for several key African crops.By mid-century, the mean estimates of aggregate production changes in SSA under our preferred model specification are -22, -17, -17, -18, and -8% for maize, sorghum, millet, groundnut, and cassava, respectively.In all cases except cassava, there is a 95% probability that damages exceed 7%, and a 5% probability that they exceed 27%.Moreover, countries with the highest average yields have the largest projected yield losses, suggesting that well-fertilized modern seed varieties are more susceptible to heat related losses.
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- Authors
- Schlenker, W., & Lobell, D. B.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 014010
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2079350221
- Cited by
- 1,492
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 80 · 2025: 88 · 2024: 94 · 2023: 80 · 2022: 101 · 2021: 132 · 2020: 180 · 2019: 111 · 2018: 110 · 2017: 103 · 2016: 83 · 2015: 69 · 2014: 97 · 2013: 59 · 2012: 63
- FWCI
- 54.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Rockefeller Foundation
- Office of Science
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Climate change impacts on agriculture
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Agricultural risk and resilience
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Keywords
- climate change impacts on agriculture, crop yield loss, sub-Saharan Africa, maize, sorghum, millet, groundnut, cassava, heat stress, agricultural adaptation
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