Carr, Tony William;
(2022)
The impact of water erosion and climate change on global cereal yields.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Water erosion can degrade soils and reduce agricultural productivity. Global modelling studies are increasingly used to explore the potential impacts of environmental change, especially climate change, on crop yields. Despite its impact on crops and its direct link to the climate system, water erosion has not previously been considered in projections of the impacts of climate change on global crop yields. Similarly, global water erosion assessments have not considered how water erosion affects crops, and vice versa. This thesis identifies a method to estimate global water erosion patterns and evaluates it using a global database of erosion measurements. It then examines the global potential impacts of erosion on maize and wheat yields, and explores how these might be affected by climate change in the future. The Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) crop model is used with global datasets on soil, topography, climate and field management to estimate erosion and its impacts on crop yields. Estimates using weather data for the years 1980–2010 suggest that water erosion reduced maize and wheat yields by 3% annually in around half of global arable land under current land management regimes. The estimated annual maize and wheat production losses due to water erosion accounted for less than 1% of the global production volume. However, water erosion in maize and wheat fields at low latitudes is likely to increase in the future due to the adverse effects of climate change on both crops. Uncertainties remain about estimates of water erosion that need to be addressed through better integration of models and observations. Nevertheless, the integrated biophysical modelling framework developed in this study can provide a link between robust estimates of water erosion, economics, and policy making that have so far been lacking in global agricultural assessments.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The impact of water erosion and climate change on global cereal yields |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10155349 |
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