Title: Impact of climate change on water requirements of wheat and potato in Eastern India

Authors: Arpita Ghosal; Abhijit Saha; Manoj Kumar Nanda; Manish Kumar Naskar

Addresses: Department of Agricultural Meteorology and Physics, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal, India ' Department of Agricultural Meteorology and Physics, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal, India ' Department of Agricultural Meteorology and Physics, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal, India ' Department of Agricultural Meteorology and Physics, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal, India

Abstract: With the objective of investigating the impact of future climate (2020-2095) on the crop water demand of some principal rabi crops, viz, wheat, potato in eastern India, weather data were generated from MarkSim® GCM ensemble using three suitable GCMs and at two RCP levels, viz, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. Seasonal potential evapotranspiration (SPET) was estimated using Hargreaves-Samani method, which were subsequently multiplied with crop coefficient to obtain seasonal water requirement (SWR). Decadal changes of SWR were found to be statistically significant for all agroclimatic zones, study crops as well as for all sowing periods. Among the agroclimatic zones, New Alluvial Zone (NAZ) will have maximum SWR across all crops over the 21st century followed by Red Laterite Zone (RLZ) and Terai Zone (TZ). SWR for all crops and agroclimatic zones showed uniform increasing trend over the period 2020-2095.

Keywords: global circulation models; GCMs; RCP 4.5; RCP 8.5; seasonal potential evapotranspiration; SPET; seasonal water requirement; SWR; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2024.139900

International Journal of Global Warming, 2024 Vol.33 No.4, pp.349 - 367

Received: 01 Jan 2024
Accepted: 24 Mar 2024
Published online: 09 Jul 2024 *

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