An Integrated Approach to Climate Change Impact Assessment on Basin Hydrology and Agriculture

Abstract

Climate change, including changes in air temperature and precipitation, would affect the basin hydrological regime, and the change in the hydrological system might have some impacts on agriculture. To assess the impacts of climate change on the hydrology and agriculture of a basin, the relationship between climate and basin hydrology, and between hydrology and the agriculture of the basin need to be analysed systemically and integrally. In this study, an integrated approach to these analyses or diagnoses is developed for a better projection and evaluation of the climate change impacts as the foundation for better adaptation. It takes into account various complicated factors in these relationships, which are often uncertain and affect each other and must therefore be treated in a particular way.

Consequently, an integrated approach to the issues in question was developed and applied to a large-scale research project, which is the ICCAP Project of RIHN, Japan. The primary aim of the approach and the project was to integrate the concept and processes of the integration approach, which are outlined together with their application in the case study. The methodologies and major objectives of the integrated approach as the core task of the project were:

• (1) To diagnose the structure of land and water management in agricultural production systems in a basin, and especially to evaluate quantitatively the relationship between cropping systems, the hydrological cycle, and water balance in farmland and its environs.

• (2) To develop the methodology or model for integrated assessment of impacts of climate change and adaptations to it on agricultural production systems, mainly agricultural land and water management.

• (3) To develop and improve the Regional Climate Model (RCM) for more accurate projection with higher resolution of future changes in a regional climate, as the base for better assessment of climate change impacts.

• (4) To assess the vulnerability of agricultural production systems to natural change and to suggest possible and effective measures for enhancing the sustainability of agriculture through the integrated assessment of climate change impacts.

T. Watanabe, Professor, Kyoto University, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan; e-mail: nabe@kais.kyoto-u.ac.jp.

T. Nagano, Associate Professor, Kobe University, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, 1-1 Rokkodai, Nada-ku, Kobe, Japan; e-mail: naganot@ruby.kobe-u.ac.jp.

R. Kanber, Retired Professor, Çukurova University, Department of Agricultural Structures and Irrigation Engineering, Adana, Turkey; e-mail: kanber@cu.edu.tr.

S. Kapur, Retired Professor, Çukurova University, Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Adana, Turkey; e-mail: kapurs@cu.edu.tr.