Water Productivity Evaluation under Multi-GCM Projections of Climate Change in Oases of the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China

Liu Liu, Zezhong Guo, Guanhua Huang and Ruotong Wang
Additional contact information
Liu Liu: College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Zezhong Guo: College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Guanhua Huang: College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Ruotong Wang: College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: As the second largest inland river basin situated in the middle of the Hexi Corridor, Northwest China, the Heihe River basin (HRB) has been facing a severe water shortage problem, which seriously restricts its green and sustainable development. The evaluation of climate change impact on water productivity inferred by crop yield and actual evapotranspiration is of significant importance for water-saving in agricultural regions. In this study, the multi-model projections of climate change under the three Representative Concentration Pathways emission scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5) were used to drive an agro-hydrological model to evaluate the crop water productivity in the middle irrigated oases of the HRB from 2021–2050. Compared with the water productivity simulation based on field experiments during 2012–2015, the projected water productivity in the two typical agricultural areas (Gaotai and Ganzhou) both exhibited an increasing trend in the future 30 years, which was mainly attributed to the significant decrease of the crop water consumption. The water productivity in the Gaotai area under the three RCP scenarios during 2021–2050 increased by 9.2%, 14.3%, and 11.8%, while the water productivity increased by 15.4%, 21.6%, and 19.9% in the Ganzhou area, respectively. The findings can provide useful information on the Hexi Corridor and the Belt and Road to policy-makers and stakeholders for sustainable development of the water-ecosystem-economy system.

Keywords: climate change; spatio-temporal variation; crop growth; SWAP-EPIC model; Hexi Corridor; the Belt and Road (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1706/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1706/ (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:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:10:p:1706-:d:231403

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

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