Agricultural adaptation to climate change in China

Article type: Research Article

Authors: You, Song-cai

Affiliations: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents the study on agriculture adaptation to climate change by adopting the assumed land use change strategy to resist the water shortage and to build the capacity to adapt the expected climate change in the northern China. The cost-benefit analysis result shows that assumed land use change from high water consuming rice cultivation to other crops is very effective. Over 7 billions m³ of water can be saved. Potential conflicts between different social interest groups, different regions, demand and supply, and present and future interests have been analyzed for to form a policy to implement the adaptation strategy. Trade, usually taken as one of adaptation strategies, was suggested as a policy option for to support land use change, which not only meets the consumption demand, but also, in terms of resources, imports waterresources.

Keywords: agriculture, adaptation, climate change, land use change

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 192-197, 2001