Exploring the effect of climate change on crop yield in West Africa

In West-Africa countries, most economies and people depend on rainfed agriculture. In this arca, rainfall is highly variable and, from the period 1931-1960 to 1968-1990, the annual rainfall has decreased 20 to 40%. In addition, most study considering climate change scenarios show a negative impact of future climate on crop yield, even if they do not agree on the amplitude of this impact. The objective of this study is to use the climate simulations from the IPCC AR4 to quantify the expected evolution of crop yield and areas suitable for agriculture in West Africa. This study is based on the outputs of the AMMA project that allowed to collect both climate and agricultural data (farming practices, crop yields ...) and to develop crop model simulating realistically the variability of the crop yield in the Sahel. We first test the sensitivity of the SARRAH crop model to the climate forcing to simulate the crop yield of millet, maize and sorghum in Senegal. We then estimate the biases in simulating crop yield using the IPCC climate models in the actual runs (20C3M). Finally, we use the two scenarios A2 and B1 to give trends in future yields in the next century and to quantify uncertainties in the simulated future yields.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Oettli, Pascal, Sultan, Benjamin, Baron, Christian
Format:	conference_item biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	AMMA International
Online Access:	http://agritrop.cirad.fr/607300/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/607300/1/607300.pdf
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