Agricultural decision-making in Turkey from climate change perspective :|a new road map for the period of 2021-2050

Abstract

The expectation that it can affect basic life resources and particularly food security on a global, regional, and local scale with its impact on the ecosystem has made climate change one of the most urgent issues on the global agenda. Extreme weather events due to climate change may degrade food quality, affect access to food and raise food prices, markedly affecting agricultural productivity. Many countries have already been faced the global impacts of climate change, therefore studies on the effects that may occur on ecosystems are of great importance. As one of the regions that may be most affected by climate change, the Mediterranean Basin is at risk in terms of agricultural production due to temperature increases and precipitation regime changes, and what’s more the increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events due to climate change. As a country located in the Mediterranean Basin, Turkey may also suffer from climate change. This situation poses a risk in terms of crop production value and export income, particularly for products with high commercial value grown in Turkey. Therefore, the study has focused two crops of the country i.e., hazelnut and grape with the high commercial value. In the first stage, the climate data for different phenological periods and different variables for each crop was obtained from the regional climate model, RegCM4.4 with the MPI-ESM-MR global climate model under the RCP8.5 pessimistic scenario for the baseline of 1991-2012 and the future period of 2021-2050. In the second stage, the change in hazelnut yield was analyzed by statistical approach, panel data method, and the change in grape yield was analyzed using the crop growth simulation model, STICS. At the last stage, how the climate conditions of hazelnut (88 locations) and grapes (96 locations) will change in the future has been examined by using membership function. However, considering the crop production values of these two crops and export revenue contribution to the national economy, the possibility of new locations where these crops may grow in the future has been analyzed in 923 locations throughout Turkey. Accordingly, at this stage of the thesis, climate suitability index was calculated for hazelnut and grape, and climatic suitability conditions were determined according to 5 classification ranges. In brief, it has been observed that climate change may have a negative impact on both hazelnut and grape yields in the future and it is predicted that there may be significant reductions in climatic suitability conditions in the locations where these two crops grow.