Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture and Water Resource Management in the North China Plain

Abstract North China Plain (NCP) is a main agricultural production region in China, dominated by summer maize-winter wheat double cropping system. However, the grain yield highly depends on groundwater extraction to fulfil irrigation demand. Additionally, warming and drying tendency under climate change will further challenge water resource availability productivity. This study applied modelled regional precipitation temperature within East Asia domain from Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment derive indicators quantify future utilisation. Results show 30% increase demand (IWD) for growing maize Jiangsu Province slight decrease central Shandong Province. While wheat, IWD decreases 3-24% over NCP except northern Hebei Therefore, we suggest reducing fields southern winter NCP, intensifying cultivation Mann-Kendall statistics indicate an indistinct trend but significant crop evapotranspiration (ETc) during 2021-2050, highlighting necessity cope with rising ETc apply varieties high stress-tolerance release irrigating intensity change.