अमूर्त

Climate Change Impact on Yield and Water Balance Components in Rice-Wheat Cropping System in Central Punjab, India under RCP 8.5

Mehraj U Din Dar*, Rajan Aggarwal, Samanpreet Kaur

The study was carried on (i) obtaining HAD GEM2-ES climate change scenario RCP(Representative concentration Pathways) (8.5) data for Ludhiana location and minimizing its bias, (ii) simulation of its effect on irrigation requirements, crop yield, crop duration, and water-use efficiency of rice–wheat cropping system with DSSAT v 4.6.1 model. Model simulations predict reduction in irrigation requirements for rice crop and increase in irrigation requirements for wheat crop under RCP 8.5. Also reductions in crop yields in future associated with shortening of growth period due to increased temperature were predicted by the model. Increased rainfall in future would decrease irrigation water requirement of crops but would not offset the adverse effect of increased temperature. Although evapotranspiration would decrease towards end of the century, yet relatively more decrease in yield would lower water use efficiency