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Changes in rice disasters across China in recent decades and the meteorological and agronomic causes

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Abstract

Both climate extremes and agricultural disasters have been reported to increase in recent decades; however, so far, we have little idea on the characteristics of agricultural disasters changes, as well as their meteorological and agronomic causes. Here, using the observed records on rice disasters at agro-meteorological stations across China and the meteorological indexes, we investigated the temporal and spatial changes of major rice disasters occurrence frequency and their relationships to climate change, climate extremes and agronomic practices from 1991 to 2009. We presented the temporal and spatial changes in occurrence frequency of major rice disasters, including droughts, floods, heat stress, chilling damage, insects and diseases, during the warmer period of 2000–2009, in comparison with the period of 1991–2000, based on both the observed records and the meteorological indexes. The results showed that changes in rice disasters could be largely ascribed to changes in climate extremes in recent decades. Floods, insects and diseases occurred more frequently at earlier growth stages; in contrast, chilling damage occurred more frequently at later growth stages in southwestern China during the period of 2000–2009, in comparison with the period of 1991–2000. Our findings highlighted the options should be taken timely and scientifically to reduce the disasters and to cope with ongoing climate change, based on the characteristics of agricultural disasters changes in recent decades.

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported by National Science Foundation of China (Project Number 41071030), the National Key Programme for Developing Basic Science (Project Number 2010CB950902), and the science and technology strategic pilot projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Project Number XDA05090308). F. Tao acknowledges the support of the ‘‘Hundred Talents’’ Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and editors for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Fulu Tao & Shuai Zhang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Zhao Zhang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Shuai Zhang

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  1. Fulu Tao
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  2. Shuai Zhang
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  3. Zhao Zhang
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Correspondence to Fulu Tao.

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Tao, F., Zhang, S. & Zhang, Z. Changes in rice disasters across China in recent decades and the meteorological and agronomic causes. Reg Environ Change 13, 743–759 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-012-0357-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-012-0357-7

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