Adaptation strategies in coping with climate change impacts for improved crop health and sustainable food production

In this chapter, historical climate information on rainfall, evaporation and temperature is compared with projections of these variables using outputs from the CSIRO Mk3 GCM for the A1B SRES scenario and stochastic downscaling models for two selected locations in Australia. The differences between current climatic parameters and those for 2030 and 2070 provide information on the changes in dependability of crop growing seasons. These analyses could also be used in identifying suitable strategies for adaptation to the projected climate change, and for evaluating alternate management options relating to excess and insufficient water during the growing season. These findings also have implications in resource management for mitigation purposes (e.g. the role of crop models in screening environments for growing of carbon sinks). The issue of the response of pests and diseases, and their interaction with host crops, to climate change is also considered. Information is required on the seasonal and geographic distributions of the occurrence and severity of pests and diseases for future climatic situations. We also report on current research aiming to integrate pathogen, crop and weather information for making tactical crop management decisions. Even though the study uses Australian data as a case study to test and validate the methodologies presented, it provides a generic framework and research directions which can easily be applied to other parts of the world including South Asia. Implications of research findings to South Asia and future research directions are also discussed.