The Possible Effect of Climate Warming on Northern Limits of Cropping System and Crop Yield in China

Significantly increasing temperature since the 1980s in China has become a consensus under the background of global climate change and how climate change affects agriculture or even cropping systems has attracted more and more attention from Chinese government and scientists. In this study, the possible effects of climate warming on the national northern limits of cropping systems, the northern limits of winter wheat and double rice, and the stable-yield northern limits of rainfed winter wheat-summer maize rotation in China from 1981 to 2007 were analyzed. Also, the possible change of crop yield caused by planting limits displacement during the periods 1950s-1981 and 1981-2007 was compared and discussed. The recognized calculation methods of agricultural climatic indices were employed. According to the indices of climatic regionalization for cropping systems, the national northern limits of cropping systems, winter wheat and double rice, and the stable-yield northern limits of rainfed winter wheat-summer maize rotation during two periods, including the 1950s-1980 and 1981-2007, were drawn with ArcGIS software. Compared with the situation during the 1950s- 1980, the northern limits of double cropping system during 1981-2007 showed significant spatial displacement in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, and Liaoning provinces and Beijing municipality, China. The northern limits of triple cropping system showed the maximum spatial displacement in Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces, China. Without considering variety change and social economic factors, the per unit area grain yield of main planting patterns would increase about 54-106% if single cropping system was replaced by double cropping system, which turned out to be 27- 58% if double cropping system was replaced by triple cropping system. In Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia autonomous regions, China, the northern limits of winter wheat during 1981-2007 moved northward and expanded westward in different degrees, compared with those during the 1950s-1980. Taking Hebei Province as an example, the northern limits of winter wheat moved northward, and the per unit area grain yield would averagely increase about 25% in the change region if the spring wheat was replaced by winter wheat. In Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan provinces, China, the planting northern limits of double rice moved northward, and the per unit area grain yield would increase in different degrees only from the perspective of heat resource. The stable- yield northern limits of rainfed winter wheat-summer maize rotation moved southeastward in most regions, which was caused by the decrease of local precipitation in recent years. During the past 50 yr, climate warming made the national northern limits of cropping systems move northward in different degrees, the northern limits of winter wheat and double rice both moved northward, and the cropping system change would cause the increase of per unit area grain yield in the change region. However, the stable-yield northern limits of rainfed winter wheat-summer maize rotation moved southeastward due to the decrease of precipitation.

Vegetation-Climate Relationship and Its Application in the Division of Vegetation Zone in China

Distribution of vegetation is closely coupled with climate; the climate controls distribution of vegetation and the vegetation type reflects regional climates. To reveal vegetation_climate relationships is the foundation for understanding the vegetation distribution and theoretically serving vegetation regionalization. Vegetation regionalization is a theoretical integration of vegetation studies and provides a base for physiogeographical regionalization as well as agriculture and forestry regionalization. Based on a brief historical overview on studies of vegetation_climate relationships and vegetation regionalization conducted in China, we review the principles, bases and major schemes of previous vegetation regionalization and discuss on several contentious boundaries of vegetation zones in the present paper. We proposed that, under the circumstances that the primary vegetation has been destroyed in most parts of China, the division of vegetation zones/regions should be based on the distribution of primary and its secondary vegetation types and climatic indices that delimit distribution of the vegetation types. This not only reveals the closed relationship between vegetation and climate, but also is feasible practically. Although there still are divergence of views on the name and their boundaries of the several vegetation zones, it is commonly accepted that there are eight major vegetation regions in China, i.e. cold temperate needleleaf forest region, temperate needleleaf and broadleaf mixed forest region, warm temperate deciduous broadleaf forest region, subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest region, tropical monsoon forest and rain forest region, temperate steppe region, temperate desert region, and Qinghai_Xizang (Tibetan) Plateau high_cold vegetation region. Analyzing characteristics of vegetation and climate of major vegetation boundaries, we suggested that: 1) Qinling Mountain_Huaihe River line is an important arid/humid climatic, but not a thermal climatic boundary, and thus can not also be regarded as the northern limit of the subtropical vegetation zone; 2) the northern limit of subtropical vegetation zone in China is along the northern coast of the Yangtze River, from Hangzhou Bay, via Taihu Lake, Xuancheng and Tongling in Anhui Province, through by southern slope of the Dabie Mountains, to Wuhan and its west, coinciding with a warmth index ( WI ) value of 130-140 ℃·month; 3) the tropical region is limited in a very small area in southeastern Hainan Island and southern edge of Taiwan Island; and 4) considering a significant difference in climates between the southern and northern parts of the warm temperate zone, we suggested that the warm temperate zone in China is divided into two vegetation regions, deciduous broadleaf woodland region and deciduous and evergreen broadleaf mixed forest region, the Qinling Mountain_Huaihe River line being as their boundary. We also claimed that the zonal vegetation in North China is deciduous broadleaf woodland. Finally, we emphasized the importance of dynamic vegetation regionalization linked to climate changes.