Implications of future climate change on crop and irrigation water requirements in a semi-arid river basin using CMIP6 GCMs

Agriculture faces risks due to increasing stress from climate change,particularly in semi-arid regions.Lack of understanding of crop water requirement(CWR)and irrigation water requirement(IWR)in a changing climate may result in crop failure and socioeconomic problems that can become detrimental to agriculture-based economies in emerging nations worldwide.Previous research in CWR and IWR has largely focused on large river basins and scenarios from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3(CMIP3)and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5(CMIP5)to account for the impacts of climate change on crops.Smaller basins,however,are more susceptible to regional climate change,with more significant impacts on crops.This study estimates CWRs and IWRs for five crops(sugarcane,wheat,cotton,sorghum,and soybean)in the Pravara River Basin(area of 6537 km^(2))of India using outputs from the most recent Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6(CMIP6)General Circulation Models(GCMs)under Shared Socio-economic Pathway(SSP)245 and SSP585 scenarios.An increase in mean annual rainfall is projected under both scenarios in the 2050s and 2080s using ten selected CMIP6 GCMs.CWRs for all crops may decline in almost all of the CMIP6 GCMs in the 2050s and 2080s(with the exceptions of ACCESS-CM-2 and ACCESS-ESM-1.5)under SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios.The availability of increasing soil moisture in the root zone due to increasing rainfall and a decrease in the projected maximum temperature may be responsible for this decline in CWR.Similarly,except for soybean and cotton,the projected IWRs for all other three crops under SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios show a decrease or a small increase in the 2050s and 2080s in most CMIP6 GCMs.These findings are important for agricultural researchers and water resource managers to implement long-term crop planning techniques and to reduce the negative impacts of climate change and associated rainfall variability to avert crop failure and agricultural losses.

Recent Advances in the Unconventional Design of Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion Devices

As the world works to move away from traditional energy sources,effective efficient energy storage devices have become a key factor for success.The emergence of unconventional electrochemical energy storage devices,including hybrid batteries,hybrid redox flow cells and bacterial batteries,is part of the solution.These alternative electrochemical cell configurations provide materials and operating condition flexibility while offering high-energy conversion efficiency and modularity of design-to-design devices.The power of these diverse devices ranges from a few milliwatts to several megawatts.Manufactur-ing durable electronic and point-of-care devices is possible due to the development of all-solid-state batteries with efficient electrodes for long cycling and high energy density.New batteries made of earth-abundant metal ions are approaching the capacity of lithium-ion batteries.Costs are being reduced with the advent of flow batteries with engineered redox molecules for high energy density and membrane-free power generating electrochemical cells,which utilize liquid dynamics and interfaces(solid,liquid,and gaseous)for electrolyte separation.These batteries support electrode regeneration strategies for chemical and bio-batteries reducing battery energy costs.Other batteries have different benefits,e.g.,carbon-neutral Li-CO_(2) batteries consume CO_(2) and generate power,offering dual-purpose energy storage and carbon sequestration.This work considers the recent technological advances of energy storage devices.Their transition from conventional to unconventional battery designs is examined to identify operational flexibilities,overall energy storage/conversion efficiency and application compatibility.Finally,a list of facilities for large-scale deployment of major electrochemical energy storage routes is provided.