Unstable State of Hydrologic Regime and Grain Yields in Northern Kazakhstan Estimated with Tree-Ring Proxies

Irina P. Panyushkina (), Altyn Shayakhmetova (), Sergey Pashkov and Leonid I. Agafonov
Additional contact information
Irina P. Panyushkina: Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Altyn Shayakhmetova: Agrotechnological Faculty, M. Kozyrbaev North Kazakhstan University, Petropavl 150000, Kazakhstan
Sergey Pashkov: Math and Natural Sciences Faculty, M. Kozyrbaev North Kazakhstan University, Petropavl 150000, Kazakhstan
Leonid I. Agafonov: Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology UB RAS, Yekaterinburg 620144, Russia

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: Changes in the hydrologic regime impose great challenges for grain production. We investigated the impact of dry and wet extremes on the recent losses of crops in Severo-Kazakhstanskaya Oblast (SKO), where 25% of Kazakhstan’s wheat is produced. We reconstructed the Palmer Drought Severity Index (June–August PDSI) and average grain yields (with an explained variance of 48% and 44%, respectively) using five tree ring width chronologies. The extended history of the moisture variability and yields of spring wheat, oats, and barley shows the strong impact of hydrology, rather than the heat, on the grain production. We defined three distinctive hydrologic regimes in SKO: (1) 1886–1942, (2) 1943–1977, (3) 1978–2023. The early regime had fewer drought events, including some that covered a single year. Their duration increased up to 3 years in the second period. The latest regime is an extreme mode of hydrologic variability with events abruptly switching from extremely dry to extremely wet conditions (called “whiplash”). The 21st century regime signifies that the intensified and prolonged decade-long drought transitioned into pluvial condition. The new regime created sizable instability for grain producers. This crop yield reconstruction denotes the potential of the tree-ring proxy for understanding the impact of climate change on the agriculture and food security of Central Asia.

Keywords: wheat; oats; barley; tree-ring reconstruction; Central Asia; food security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/6/790/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/6/790/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:6:p:790-:d:1398379

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().