skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • A generic risk assessment framework to evaluate historical and future climate-induced risk for rainfed corn and soybean yield in the U.S. Midwest
Title: A generic risk assessment framework to evaluate historical and future climate-induced risk for rainfed corn and soybean yield in the U.S. Midwest
Fluctuations in temperature and precipitation are expected to increase with global climate change, with more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting extreme events, posing greater challenges for the security of global food production. Here we proposed a generic framework to assess the impact of climate-induced crop yield risk under both current and future scenarios by combining a stochastic model for synthetic climate generation with a well-validated statistical crop yield model. The synthetic climate patterns were generated using the extended Empirical Orthogonal Function method based on historically observed and projected climate conditions. We applied our framework to assess the corn and soybean yield risk in the U.S. Midwest for historical and future climate conditions. We found that: (1) in the U.S. Midwest, about 45% and 40% of the interannual variability in corn and soybean yield, respectively, can be explained by the climate; (2) the risk level is higher in the southwest and northwest regions of the U.S. Midwest corresponding to 25% yield reduction for both corn and soybean compared to other regions; (3) the severity for the 1988 and 2012 major droughts quantified by our method represent 21-year and 30-year events for corn, and 7-year and 12-year events for soybean, respectively; (4) the crop yield risk will increase under a future climate scenario (i.e., Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 or RCP 8.5 at 2050) compared with the current climate condition, with averaged yield decreases and yield variability increases for both corn and soybean. The framework and the results of this study enable applications for risk management policies and practices for the agriculture sectors.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1922758
PAR ID:
10291024
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Weather and climate extremes
Volume:
33
Issue:
2021
ISSN:
2212-0947
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; (, Environmental Research Letters)
    Abstract Drought poses a major threat to agricultural production and food security. This study evaluates the changes in drought-induced crop yield loss risk for six crops (alfalfa, barley, corn, soybean, spring wheat, and winter wheat) between 1971–2000 and 1991–2020 across the contiguous US. Using a copula-based probabilistic framework, our results reveal a spatially heterogeneous change in yield risk to meteorological droughts, which varies with crop types. Regional analyses identify the largest temporal decline in yield risk in the Southeast and Upper Midwest, while the Northwest and South show an increase in risk. Among the considered anthropogenic and climatic drivers of crop productivity, changes in climatic variables such as high temperatures (e.g., killing degree days), vapor pressure deficit and precipitation show significantly stronger associations with changes in yield risk than irrigated area and nitrogen fertilizer application. Among the counties that observe drier drought events, only 55% exhibit an increase in crop yield loss risk due to drier droughts. The rest 45% show a decrease in yield loss risk due to mediation of favorable climatic and anthropogenic factors. Alarmingly, more than half (for barley and spring wheat), and one-third (for alfalfa, corn, soybean and winter wheat) of that the risk increasing regions have outsized influence on destabilizing national crop production. The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers, agricultural stakeholders, and decision-makers in terms of the potential ways and locations to be prioritized for enhancing local and national agricultural resilience and ensuring food security. 
    more » « less
  2. (, Environmental Research: Food Systems)
    Abstract Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of extreme events, posing challenges to food security. Corn, a staple crop for billions, is particularly vulnerable to heat stress, a primary driver of yield variability. While many studies have examined the climate impact on average corn yields, little attention has been given to the climate impact on production volatility. This study investigates the future volatility and risks associated with global corn supply under climate change, evaluating the potential benefits of two key adaptation strategies: irrigation and market integration. A statistical model is employed to estimate corn yield response to heat stress and utilize NEX-GDDP-CMIP6 climate data to project future production volatility and risks of substantial yield losses. Three metrics are introduced to quantify these risks: Sigma (σ), the standard deviation of year-on-year yield change, which reflects overall yield volatility; Rho (ρ), the risk of substantial loss, defined as the probability of yield falling below a critical threshold; and beta (β), a relative risk coefficient that captures the volatility of a region’s corn production compared to the globally integrated market. The analysis reveals a concerning trend of increasing year-on-year yield volatility (σ) across most regions and climate models. This volatility increase is significant for key corn-producing regions like Brazil and the United States. While irrigated corn production exhibits a smaller rise in volatility, suggesting irrigation as a potential buffer against climate change impacts, it is not a sustainable option as it can cause groundwater depletion. On the other hand, global market integration reduces overall volatility and market risks significantly with less sustainability concerns. These findings highlight the importance of a multidimensional approach to adaptation in the food sector. While irrigation can benefit individual farmers, promoting global market integration offers a broader solution for fostering resilience and sustainability across the entire food system. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; (, Frontiers in Energy Research)
    Annual U.S. production of bioethanol, primarily produced from corn starch in the U.S. Midwest, rose to 57 billion liters in 2021, which fulfilled the required conventional biofuel target set forth by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. At the same time, the U.S. fell short of the cellulosic or advanced biofuel target of 79 billion liters. The growth of bioenergy grasses (e.g., Miscanthus and switchgrass) across the Central and Eastern U.S. has the potential to feed enhanced cellulosic bioethanol production and, if successful, increase renewable fuel volumes. However, water consumption and climate change and its extremes are critical concerns in corn and bioenergy grass productivity. These concerns are compounded by the demands on potentially productive land areas and water devoted to producing biofuels. This is a fundamental Food-Energy-Water System (FEWS) nexus challenge. We apply a computational framework to estimate potential bioenergy yield and conversion to bioethanol yield across the U.S., based on crop field studies and conversion technology analysis for three crops—corn, Miscanthus, and two cultivars of switchgrass (Cave-in-Rock and Alamo). The current study identifies regions where each crop has its highest yield across the Center and Eastern U.S. While growing bioenergy grasses requires more water than corn, one advantage they have as a source of bioethanol is that they control nitrogen leaching relative to corn. Bioenergy grasses also maintain steadily high productivity under extreme climate conditions, such as drought and heatwaves in the year 2012 over the U.S. Midwest, because the perennial growing season and the deeper and denser roots can ameliorate the soil water stress. While the potential ethanol yield could be enhanced using energy grasses, their practical success in becoming a potential source of ethanol yield remains limited by socio-economic and operational constraints and concerns regarding competition with food production. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences)
    Abstract Crop phenology regulates seasonal carbon and water fluxes between croplands and the atmosphere and provides essential information for monitoring and predicting crop growth dynamics and productivity. However, under rapid climate change and more frequent extreme events, future changes in crop phenological shifts have not been well investigated and fully considered in earth system modeling and regional climate assessments. Here, we propose an innovative approach combining remote sensing imagery and machine learning (ML) with climate and survey data to predict future crop phenological shifts across the US corn and soybean systems. Specifically, our projected findings demonstrate distinct acceleration patterns—under the RCP 4.5/RCP 8.5 scenarios, corn planting, silking, maturity, and harvesting stages would significantly advance by 0.94/1.66, 1.13/2.45, 0.89/2.68, and 1.04/2.16 days/decade during 2021–2099, respectively. Soybeans exhibit more muted responses with phenological stages showing relatively smaller negative trends (0.59, 1.08, 0.07, and 0.64 days/decade under the RCP 4.5 vs. 1.24, 1.53, 0.92, and 1.04 days/decade under the RCP 8.5). These spatially explicit projections illustrate how crop phenology would respond to future climate change, highlighting widespread and progressively earlier phenological timing. Based on these findings, we call for a specific effort to quantify the cascading effects of future phenology shifts on crop yield and carbon, water, and energy balances and, accordingly, craft targeted adaptive strategies. 
    more » « less
  5. ; (, Land)
    Crop rotations are known to improve soil health by replenishing lost nutrients, increasing organic matter, improving microbial activity, and reducing disease risk and weed pressure. We characterized the spatial distribution of crops and dominant field-scale cropping sequences from 2008 to 2019 for the Wisconsin Central Sands (WCS) region, a major producer of potato and vegetables in the U.S. The dominant two- and three-year rotations were determined, with an additional focus on assessing regional potato rotation management. Our results suggest corn and soybean are the two most widely planted crops, occurring on 67% and 36% of all agricultural land at least once during the study period. The most frequent two- and three-year crop rotations include corn, soybean, alfalfa, sweet corn, potato, and beans, with continuous corn being the most dominant two- and three-year rotations (13.2% and 8.5% of agricultural land, respectively). While four- and five-year rotations for potato are recommended to combat pest and disease pressure, 23.2% and 65.9% of potato fields returned to that crop in rotation after two and three years, respectively. Furthermore, 5.6% of potato fields were planted continuously with that crop. Given potato’s high nitrogen (N) fertilizer requirements, the prevalence of sandy soils, and ongoing water quality issues, adopting more widespread use of four- or five-year rotations of potato with crops that require zero or less N fertilizer could reduce groundwater nitrate concentrations and improve water quality. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email