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Modeled impact of climate change on sugarcane yield in Réunion, a tropical island

Christina M., Mézino M., Le Mézo L., Todoroff P.. 2023. In : Proceedings of the XXXI International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists. Hyderabad : ISSCT, p. 221-229. ISSCT Congress. 31, 2023-02-20/2023-02-23, Hyderabad (Inde).

DOI: 10.18167/DVN1/D2BGDJ

Climate change is expected to have important consequences for sugarcane production due to global warming, change in precipitation patterns and change in frequency of extreme weather events. A key application of crop growth simulation models is to help understand and predict the effects of, and interactions between, climate, soil and management, on crop yield. The aim of this study was to simulate the impact of climate change on potential sugarcane yield in 13 representative locations over the sugarcane areas of Réunion Island from 2015 to 2066 using the Mosicas sugarcane crop growth model. High spatial resolution climate data for the future was obtained from the BRIO project (Building Resilience in Indian Ocean) conducted by the French national weather service. It includes temperature and precipitation under three scenarios of the IPCC. Results show that, despite a favorable increase in temperature, the change in precipitation patterns resulted in an average reduction in sugarcane yield by 7% in 2050 in comparison to current period. Nonetheless, the impact of climate change was largely variable depending on climatic areas in the island and was much larger at low altitude on the west coast (-16%) than at high altitude (-4% in average). Additionally, the probability of low yields will increase in the future even if the average was little impacted. Different adaptive management scenarios will be explored to reduce the impact of climate change, in particular the change in irrigation management and the harvest periods. This approach will be expanded to all climatic areas in the future to consider the climate variability in the island.

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