Helping China's crop production sustainably face the challenges of tomorrow

Testing the efficacy and the sustainability of various management practices under climate change conditions

The objective of the CHINA-CROP project will be to quantify and understand how climate change and the different ways in which land was managed over the last 40 years have impacted crop production and green gas emissions. To complete the model, Dr. Xuhui Wang is building on ORCHIDEE-CROP, a model he developed during his PhD to simulate the energy and carbon budgets of croplands. Adapting it to the specificities of the Chinese crops and incorporating data about relevant land management practices, the researcher and his team will then be able to recreate the evolution of crop yields and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the last 40 years and analyse fluctuations in regard to climate and management changes. This way, the simulations may reveal possible combination of management options capable of ensuring food security without excessively increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The outcome of the project will contribute to the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports and provide quantitative evidences for the development of agricultural strategies to adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change. But can a reasonable compromise be found to increase productivity without aggravating climate change? "A balance will be hard to reach and there is much uncertainty", Dr. Xuhui Wang says. "The growth of crop production has stabilized in many of the major food producing countries. Current techniques are reaching their limit, but new technologies are currently being developed to boost production and help soften the environmental impact". With the CHINA-CROP project, Dr. Xuhui Wang will greatly contribute to drawing up a complete assessment of Chinese cropland agriculture, bringing to light the worst and best practices and paving the way for new promising ones.