Climate change impacts on the suitability of lowland and upland crop systems in Lao PDR

IF 6.1 1区农林科学 Q1 AGRICULTURE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Agricultural Systems Pub Date : 2025-03-11 DOI:10.1016/j.agsy.2025.104316

Jonas L. Appelt , Thatheva Saphangthong , Peter H. Verburg , Jasper van Vliet

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

CONTEXT

Climate change is a major driver of changes in agricultural systems, with effects playing out differently across crop types and biophysical conditions. Studies have so far not investigated differences between lowland and upland crop systems when projecting consequences of climate change on agricultural production in Southeast Asia.

OBJECTIVE

To model the change in crop suitability under different climate scenarios for major crops in Lao PDR and analyse differentiated impacts across lowland and upland crop systems.

METHODS

We use a modified version of the EcoCrop suitability model, adding additional considerations for precipitation seasonality, to project the change in crop suitability in Lao PDR under different climate scenarios for the medium term future (2041–2070). The analysis compares impacts across lowland and upland village areas for six major crops: Paddy rice, upland rice, maize, cassava, banana, and rubber. Further, we contextualize the results with data from a survey of eight lowland and four upland villages in Savannakhet Province.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

For all the included crops, we find that changes in climatic suitability will be significantly more negative (higher decrease or smaller increase) in lowland village areas than in upland village areas. In particular, rice suitability is projected to decrease considerably in lowland areas due to increases in heat and variability in wet season precipitation, while higher temperatures improve the suitability of non-rice crops in upland areas due to lower cold stress, with the largest increases being for maize, cassava, and banana. Local crop data from Savannakhet Province further reveals how climate change impacts can increase the risks to production and food security in rice focused systems in lowland areas.

SIGNIFICANCE

These results indicate that upland crop systems in Lao PDR may fare better than lowland systems under future climate change and highlight the importance of differentiating between agricultural production systems when projecting impacts of climate change in Southeast Asia.

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来源期刊

Agricultural Systems 农林科学-农业综合

CiteScore

13.30

自引率

7.60%

发文量

174

审稿时长

30 days

期刊介绍： Agricultural Systems is an international journal that deals with interactions - among the components of agricultural systems, among hierarchical levels of agricultural systems, between agricultural and other land use systems, and between agricultural systems and their natural, social and economic environments. The scope includes the development and application of systems analysis methodologies in the following areas: Systems approaches in the sustainable intensification of agriculture; pathways for sustainable intensification; crop-livestock integration; farm-level resource allocation; quantification of benefits and trade-offs at farm to landscape levels; integrative, participatory and dynamic modelling approaches for qualitative and quantitative assessments of agricultural systems and decision making; The interactions between agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes; the multiple services of agricultural systems; food security and the environment; Global change and adaptation science; transformational adaptations as driven by changes in climate, policy, values and attitudes influencing the design of farming systems; Development and application of farming systems design tools and methods for impact, scenario and case study analysis; managing the complexities of dynamic agricultural systems; innovation systems and multi stakeholder arrangements that support or promote change and (or) inform policy decisions.