Probabilistic modeling of crop-yield loss risk under drought

A spatial showcase for sub-Saharan Africa

authored by

Bahareh Kamali, Farshid Jahanbakhshi, Diana Dogaru, Jörg Dietrich, Claas Nendel, Amir Aghakouchak

Abstract

Assessing the risk of yield loss in African drought-affected regions is key to identify feasible solutions for stable crop production. Recent studies have demonstrated that Copula-based probabilistic methods are well suited for such assessment owing to reasonably inferring important properties in terms of exceedance probability and joint dependence of different characterization. However, insufficient attention has been given to quantifying the probability of yield loss and determining the contribution of climatic factors. This study applies the Copula theory to describe the dependence between drought and crop yield anomalies for rainfed maize, millet, and sorghum crops in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The environmental policy integrated climate model, calibrated with Food and Agriculture Organization country-level yield data, was used to simulate yields across SSA (1980-2012). The results showed that the severity of yield loss due to drought had a higher magnitude than the severity of drought itself. Sensitivity analysis to identify factors contributing to drought and high-temperature stresses for all crops showed that the amount of precipitation during vegetation and grain filling was the main driver of crop yield loss, and the effect of temperature was stronger for sorghum than for maize and millet. The results demonstrate the added value of probabilistic methods for drought-impact assessment. For future studies, we recommend looking into factors influencing drought and high-temperature stresses as individual/concurrent climatic extremes.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources Management

External Organisation(s)

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)
University of Bonn
Yazd University
Romanian Academy
University of Potsdam
University of California at Irvine

Type

Article

Journal

Environmental research letters

Volume

17

ISSN

1748-9318

Publication date

11.02.2022

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, General Environmental Science, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being, SDG 13 - Climate Action, SDG 2 - Zero Hunger

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ec1 (Access: Open)