Refining the Spatial Scale for Maize Crop Agro-Climatological Suitability Conditions in a Region with Complex Topography towards a Smart and Sustainable Agriculture. Case Study: Central Romania (Cluj County)

Adina-Eliza Croitoru, Titus Cristian Man, Sorin Daniel Vâtcă, Bela Kobulniczky and Vlad Stoian
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Adina-Eliza Croitoru: Department of Physical and Technical Geography, Faculty of Geography, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Titus Cristian Man: Department of Regional Geography and Territorial Planning, Faculty of Geography, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Sorin Daniel Vâtcă: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Bela Kobulniczky: Faculty of Geography, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Vlad Stoian: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: In the context of global climate change, the agricultural sector is one of the most responsive. This study focused on changes detected in temperature requirements for maize crops based on growing season length and the growing degree day indices in Central Romania (Cluj County). Daily air temperature data over the period 1981–2013 was derived from two databases with different spatial resolutions: Agri4Cast Resources Portal and ROmanian ClimAtic Dataset. Further analysis, performed for the entire period and three 10/13-y sub-periods, focused on calculating and mapping the area of arable land for each suitability zone. The main findings were: there were differences up to 16% in the area of suitability zones when switching from the results obtained based on the coarse spatial resolution to the improved one; the differences were larger for the shorter and more recent sub-periods than for the entire period or for the first decade; and there was considerable improvement of thermal conditions for maize crops in the focus region over the considered period—suitability zone I was not detected for the first sub-period and became dominant for the last one. It can be concluded that using or developing a better spatial resolution database is very important for maximizing the profitability of agriculture.

Keywords: agro-climatology; maize ( Zea mays L.) crop; thermal conditions; growing season length; growing degree days; suitability zones; gridded data; spatial resolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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