Impact of climate change on yield and water requirement of rainfed crops in the Setif region

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show the impact of climate change on yield and water requirement of three rainfed crops in Setif region. Design/methodology/approach This study investigates likely changes in annual temperature and precipitation over Setif high plains region (North East of Algeria) among three future periods: 2025, 2050 and 2075. The projections are based on the SRES A2 and B2 scenarios. MAGICC-SCENGEN 5.3v.2 was used as a tool for downscaling the four selected general circulation models (GCMs) output data. The expected impact of climate change on yield and water requirement of winter wheat, barley and olive was evaluated using the CROPWAT model. Findings The projection of the four GCMs showed that average temperature will increase by 0.73 to 3.42 degrees C, and the precipitation will decrease by 1 to 52.7 percent, across the three future periods under the two SRES scenarios. Winter wheat and olive yields are expected to decrease under the three types of soils (heavy, medium and light). However, barley yield is expected to reduce under light soil only. Crop water requirements and irrigation water requirements are expected to increase under the two scenarios and across the three future periods. Originality/value This research is one of the first to study the impact of future climate change on water requirement and yield of rainfed crops over Setif region.