Impact of climate variability on agriculture in Ping River Basin, Thailand | |
| Author | Reda, Abbadi Girmay |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.RS-13-03 |
| Subject(s) | Climatic changes--Thailand--Ping River Basin Agriculture--Thailand--Ping River Basin |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Remote Sensing and Geographic Informa tion Systems |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. RS-13-03 |
| Abstract | Climate variability and agriculture are interlinked. Climate variability is the key production constraint of rainfed agriculture in Ping River Bain. The study covered the Ping River Basin in a holistic and comprehensive manner taking the whole basin, climate variability (196 1 - 2059), rainfed rice production system, impact of climate variability on rainfed rice production and agricultural land use change, and impacts of anomalous years on rice area and yield with possible adaptation strategy. The usual regression method couldn’ t tap anomalous years and their effect and other techniques were designed and applied to explore such relationship. Analysis was done for each of the three Ping catchments and averaged at basin level . Historical (observed) climate variability analysis (196 1 - 2010) in terms of pattern, variability and spatiotemporal trend through geospatial and statistical techniques was carried out for a better understanding of the historical perspective of climate variability and identify anomalous years of extreme temperat ure and rainfall. This analysis detected and described climate variability of the basin in the last 50 years. The Ping Basin exhibited high spatio - temporal climate variability during 1961 - 2010. Maximum t emperature showed a decreasing trend while minimum te mperature had an increasing trend but there was no significant trend in rainfall. Rainfall was highly variable with coefficient of variation (C.V) of 19% followed by minimum temperature (10%) and maximum temperature (4%) . Interpolation technique K riging wa s found to be the best fit in predicting all climate variables in the context of Ping Basin . Multiple regression model significantly explained 54% (P<0. 01) rice temporal yield variation by climatic factors variability in Ping Basin. A critical impact asse ssment of climate variability on rice production showed that h ighest yield gap of 48% and yield loss as high as 32% were observed. These losses in planted area and productivity are of paramount importance from food security perspective opting appropriate a daptation strategy at basin level. Planting of rice could be done Mid May to end of May in Upper and Middle Ping catchments while end of May to first week of June in Lower Ping without waiting until Mid June and early July. The findings indicate that there is a need to modify rice crop calendar and new crop calendar is proposed that would ensure farmers to obtain better yield and avoid risk of flooding during harvest as an adaptation strategy in the face of prevailing climate variability. Intercomparison of 5 GCMs at 50km spatial scale in projecting future trends indicated that a ll the five models show similar prediction of future mean temperature while ECHAM5 had the most robust prediction power of rainfall . M inimum temperature will significantly increase a t a higher rate (R 2 =0.76 at the rate of 0.042 0 C / annum) than maximum temperature (R 2 =0.5 at the rate of 0.038 0 C / annum) . Future projected climate variability will favour agriculture in the basin. S tatistical modeling to quantify impact of climate variabilit y on agricultural landuse area change showed that there was significant change (R=0.46, R 2 =21.1%, P=0.041) between 1990 and 2009 in P ing Basin . The future period (2050) shows 31.3 % yield increment due to future climate variability over the current baselin e period (2010). |
| Year | 2013 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. RS-13-03 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Information and Communications Technologies (DICT) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Remote Sensing (RS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Tripathi, Nitin Kumar |
| Examination Committee(s) | Taravudh Tipdecho ;Soni, Peeyush |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development Ethiopia ;Rural Capacity Building Project (RCBP) |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2013 |