In this paper, we compared the concept of agricultural drought and its relationship with other types of drought, and discussed research progress in agricultural drought monitoring from the site-based and remote sensing aspects, respectively. The applicability and limitations of different drought monitoring indexes were also compared. Results showed that the site-based drought index has experienced a long development history and become the main way of monitoring drought. Meanwhile, the remote sensing based drought index was mainly established from two aspects, soil water and crop water, and has achieved good results in agricultural drought monitoring. In addition, through mathematical statistics and document comparison, the development and latest progress of agricultural drought monitoring has been revealed, suggesting a transformation of agricultural drought monitoring from traditional single meteorological monitoring indicators to integrated meteorology and remote sensing monitoring indicators, mainly reflected in the introduction of multisource data and the innovation of research methods. The applicability and limitations of comprehensive drought monitoring indexes established in recent years were also discussed. Finally, through the analysis of current challenges in agricultural drought monitoring, future research prospects in agricultural drought monitoring are proposed, including further investigating the mechanism of agricultural drought, identifying the influences of agricultural drought, developing a multi spatiotemporal scale agricultural drought monitoring model, coupling the qualitative and quantitative agricultural drought evaluation models, and improving the application level of remote sensing data in agricultural drought monitoring.

Using the daily minimum temperature data of 121 meteorological stations in Inner Mongolia and its surrounding areas, this paper analyzed the spatiotemporal variation of cold surge and its possible influencing factors in Inner Mongolia during 1960-2012, based on piecewise regression model, Sen+Mann-Kendall model, and correlation analysis. The results show that, (1) The occurrence frequency of single-station cold surge presented a decreasing trend in Inner Mongolia during recent 53 years, with a linear tendency of -0.5 times/10a (-2.4-1.2 times/10a), of which a significant decreasing trend was detected before 1991, being -1.1 times/10a (-3.3-2.5 times/10a), while an increasing trend of 0.45 times/10a (-4.4-4.2 times/10a) was found after 1991. On the seasonal scale, the trend of spring cold surge was consistent with that of the annual value, and the most obvious change of cold surge also occurred in spring. The frequency of monthly cold surge showed a bimodal structure, and November witnessed the highest incidence of cold surge. (2) Spatially, the high incidence of cold surge is mainly observed in the northern and central parts of Inner Mongolia, and higher in the northern than the central part. The inter-decadal characteristic also detected that high frequency and low frequency regions presented a decreasing trend and an increasing trend, respectively, during 1960-1990, while high frequency regions expanded after the 1990s, regions with high frequency of cold surge were mainly distributed in Tol Gol, Xiao’ergou, and Xi Ujimqin Banner. (3) On annual scale, the cold surge was dominated by AO, NAO, CA, APVII, and CQ, while the difference in driving forces among seasons was detected. Winter cold surge was significantly correlated with AO, NAO, SHI, CA, TPI, APVII, CW, and IZ, indicating that cold surge in winter was caused multifactor. Autumn cold surge was mainly affected by CA and IM, while spring cold surge was significantly correlated with CA and APVII.

The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project offers a framework to compare climate impact projections in different sectors and at different scales. Consistent climate and socio-economic input data provide the basis for a cross-sectoral integration of impact projections. The project is designed to enable quantitative synthesis of climate change impacts at different levels of global warming. This report briefly outlines the objectives and framework of the first, fast-tracked phase of Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project, based on global impact models, and provides an overview of the participating models, input data, and scenario set-up.

Maize is a sensitive crop to drought and heat stresses, particularly at the reproductive stages of development. The present study investigated the individual and interactive effects of drought (50% field capacity) and heat (38 °C/30 °C) stresses on morpho-physiological growth, yield, nutrient uptake and oxidative metabolism in two maize hybrids i.e., 'Xida 889' and 'Xida 319'. The stress treatments were applied at tasseling stage for 15 days. Drought, heat and drought + heat stress caused oxidative stress by the over-production of ROS (O, HO, OH) and enhanced malondialdehyde contents, which led to reduced photosynthetic components, nutrients uptake and yield attributes. The concurrent occurrence of drought and heat was more severe for maize growth than the single stress. However, both stresses induced the metabolites accumulation and enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants to prevent the oxidative damage. The performance of Xida 899 was more prominent than the Xida 319. The greater tolerance of Xida 889 to heat and drought stresses was attributed to strong antioxidant defense system, higher osmolyte accumulation, and maintenance of photosynthetic pigments and nutrient balance compared with Xida 319.

Efforts to anticipate how climate change will affect future food availability can benefit from understanding the impacts of changes to date. We found that in the cropping regions and growing seasons of most countries, with the important exception of the United States, temperature trends from 1980 to 2008 exceeded one standard deviation of historic year-to-year variability. Models that link yields of the four largest commodity crops to weather indicate that global maize and wheat production declined by 3.8 and 5.5%, respectively, relative to a counterfactual without climate trends. For soybeans and rice, winners and losers largely balanced out. Climate trends were large enough in some countries to offset a significant portion of the increases in average yields that arose from technology, carbon dioxide fertilization, and other factors.

A key question for climate change adaptation is whether existing cropping systems can become less sensitive to climate variations. We use a field-level data set on maize and soybean yields in the central United States for 1995 through 2012 to examine changes in drought sensitivity. Although yields have increased in absolute value under all levels of stress for both crops, the sensitivity of maize yields to drought stress associated with high vapor pressure deficits has increased. The greater sensitivity has occurred despite cultivar improvements and increased carbon dioxide and reflects the agronomic trend toward higher sowing densities. The results suggest that agronomic changes tend to translate improved drought tolerance of plants to higher average yields but not to decreasing drought sensitivity of yields at the field scale.

Global climate change is predicted to increase temperatures, alter geographical patterns of rainfall and increase the frequency of extreme climatic events. Such changes are likely to alter the timing and magnitude of drought stresses experienced by crops. This study used new developments in the classification of crop water stress to first characterize the typology and frequency of drought-stress patterns experienced by European maize crops and their associated distributions of grain yield, and second determine the influence of the breeding traits anthesis-silking synchrony, maturity and kernel number on yield in different drought-stress scenarios, under current and future climates. Under historical conditions, a low-stress scenario occurred most frequently (ca. 40%), and three other stress types exposing crops to late-season stresses each occurred in ca. 20% of cases. A key revelation shown was that the four patterns will also be the most dominant stress patterns under 2050 conditions. Future frequencies of low drought stress were reduced by ca. 15%, and those of severe water deficit during grain filling increased from 18% to 25%. Despite this, effects of elevated CO2 on crop growth moderated detrimental effects of climate change on yield. Increasing anthesis-silking synchrony had the greatest effect on yield in low drought-stress seasonal patterns, whereas earlier maturity had the greatest effect in crops exposed to severe early-terminal drought stress. Segregating drought-stress patterns into key groups allowed greater insight into the effects of trait perturbation on crop yield under different weather conditions. We demonstrate that for crops exposed to the same drought-stress pattern, trait perturbation under current climates will have a similar impact on yield as that expected in future, even though the frequencies of severe drought stress will increase in future. These results have important ramifications for breeding of maize and have implications for studies examining genetic and physiological crop responses to environmental stresses. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Based on the MOD09A1 and MOD16A2 datasets with a temporal resolution of 8 days during a period from 2001 to 2016, Drought Severity Index (DSI) was quantified to characterize spatiotemporal distribution of droughts of different drought intensities. The correlation coefficients were quantified between drought-affected cropland area and the climatic winter wheat yield. In addition, relevant impacts of droughts with different drought intensities were investigated on the winter wheat yield during different growing periods. The results show that: (1) drought regimes during 2001-2016 showed a declining trend in terms of drought intensity at annual and inter-annual scales. The most severe drought occurred during 2001-2002 while regional and intermittent droughts could be observed during 2003-2010, and were alleviated during 2011-2016 with persistent wetting tendency thereafter. In terms of annual drought distribution, droughts occurred mainly in spring and autumn, some occurred in summer and few droughts in winter; (2) Generally, in terms of the spatial distribution of droughts, central and northern Hebei, southern Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu, and eastern Shandong provinces were dominated by frequent droughts though droughts were in decreasing trends; (3) analysis results concerning effects of droughts on winter wheat yield show that the incipient drought during the winter period can promote the winter wheat yield, while in the milking stage of the winter wheat, occurrence of droughts may decrease crop yield. The mild drought potential has significant effects on winter wheat yield during the ripening interval, while the moderate drought occurs during flowering, milking and ripening periods can have a significant impact on the winter wheat yield. Meanwhile, droughts with higher degree of intensity will have more significant impacts on winter wheat at its earlier growing season. In addition, water shortage due to drought effects during planting periods will reduce the yield of winter wheat, and severe and extreme droughts in particular. Therefore, it is of great merits in quantification of impacts of droughts with different intensities on winter wheat yield in different growing seasons, and it has important theoretical and practical significance for the planning of irrigation and the increase of soil moisture in the study region.

High temperatures are detrimental to crop yields and could lead to global warming-driven reductions in agricultural productivity. To assess future threats, the majority of studies used process-based crop models, but their ability to represent effects of high temperature has been questioned. Here we show that an ensemble of nine crop models reproduces the observed average temperature responses of US maize, soybean and wheat yields. Each day >30 degrees C diminishes maize and soybean yields by up to 6% under rainfed conditions. Declines observed in irrigated areas, or simulated assuming full irrigation, are weak. This supports the hypothesis that water stress induced by high temperatures causes the decline. For wheat a negative response to high temperature is neither observed nor simulated under historical conditions, since critical temperatures are rarely exceeded during the growing season. In the future, yields are modelled to decline for all three crops at temperatures >30 degrees C. Elevated CO2 can only weakly reduce these yield losses, in contrast to irrigation.

Predicting the consequences of manipulating genotype (G) and agronomic management (M) on agricultural ecosystem performances under future environmental (E) conditions remains a challenge. Crop modelling has the potential to enable society to assess the efficacy of G × M technologies to mitigate and adapt crop production systems to climate change. Despite recent achievements, dedicated research to develop and improve modelling capabilities from gene to global scales is needed to provide guidance on designing G × M adaptation strategies with full consideration of their impacts on both crop productivity and ecosystem sustainability under varying climatic conditions. Opportunities to advance the multiscale crop modelling framework include representing crop genetic traits, interfacing crop models with large-scale models, improving the representation of physiological responses to climate change and management practices, closing data gaps and harnessing multisource data to improve model predictability and enable identification of emergent relationships. A fundamental challenge in multiscale prediction is the balance between process details required to assess the intervention and predictability of the system at the scales feasible to measure the impact. An advanced multiscale crop modelling framework will enable a gene-to-farm design of resilient and sustainable crop production systems under a changing climate at regional-to-global scales.

Here we present the results from an intercomparison of multiple global gridded crop models (GGCMs) within the framework of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project. Results indicate strong negative effects of climate change, especially at higher levels of warming and at low latitudes; models that include explicit nitrogen stress project more severe impacts. Across seven GGCMs, five global climate models, and four representative concentration pathways, model agreement on direction of yield changes is found in many major agricultural regions at both low and high latitudes; however, reducing uncertainty in sign of response in mid-latitude regions remains a challenge. Uncertainties related to the representation of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and high temperature effects demonstrated here show that further research is urgently needed to better understand effects of climate change on agricultural production and to devise targeted adaptation strategies.

A discipline has typically the following four key features, namely independent research objects, independent research questions, unique characteristics, and unique social services. This paper first discusses the nature of Geography from three aspects, to reveal the characteristics of modern Geography. First, the research object of Geography is changing from simple to complex evolution. In performing geographic research, we should well recognize the complexity of geographic systems. Second, the framework of geographic research questions is structured by the fusion among geographic features, space, and time. This paper explains the essential distinction between different geographic research questions, which promotes the development of the methods and technologies for answering these questions. Third, the philosophy of combining reductionism and holism is growing continuously. A new pattern of research has been formed based on new disciplines and technologies, which is the parallel development of the research on geographic features and that on systems. This paper then identifies the essential characteristics of geographic research, summarizes the key research questions in Geography, and discusses the multiple effects of driving mechanisms on the laws of Geography. An understanding of the fundamental characteristics and the modern value of Geography illustrated in this paper will be contribute to the societal development of Geography.

For the development of sustainable, efficient risk management strategies for the hydrological extremes of droughts and floods, it is essential to understand the temporal changes of impacts, and their respective causes and interactions. In particular, little is known about changes in vulnerability and their influence on drought and flood impacts. We present a fictitious dialogue between two experts, one in droughts and the other in floods, showing that the main obstacles to scientific advancement in this area are both a lack of data and a lack of commonly accepted approaches. The drought and flood experts "discuss" available data and methods and we suggest a complementary approach. This approach consists of collecting a large number of single or multiple paired-event case studies from catchments around the world, undertaking detailed analyses of changes in impacts and drivers, and carrying out a comparative analysis. The advantages of this approach are that it allows detailed context- and location-specific assessments based on the paired-event analyses, and reveals general, transferable conclusions based on the comparative analysis of various case studies. Additionally, it is quite flexible in terms of data and can accommodate differences between floods and droughts.