Influence of Future Climate Change on the Climate Suitability of Potato Cultivation in China

As the fourth staple food crop in China, potato suitability evaluation is of great significance to ensure national food security. Based on climate data, this study constructed an integrated species distribution model to predict the climate suitable area of potato in China in the future, and provided an important scientific reference for optimizing potato planting in China.

In this study, the future climate data derived from six different global climate models (GCMs) were used to drive an ensemble of five different species distribution models (SDMs) to simulate the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of climate suitable areas of potato cultivation in China in the historical (1970-2000) and four future (2021-2040, 2041-2060, 2061-2080, and 2081-2100) periods under four greenhouse gas emission scenarios (ssp126, ssp245, ssp370, and ssp585).

(1) The precipitation in the wettest month, the highest temperature in the warmest month, and the average temperature in the coldest quarter were the main meteorological factors that affected the climate suitability of potato in China, with their contribution rates of 54.7%, 21.4% and 18.1%, respectively. (2) In four scenarios of greenhouse gas emission, the prediction results of various suitable areas were basically the same, showing the similar trends that the areas of suitable and low suitable would become larger, while the area of high suitable would become smaller. Only in Hainan, Tibet, Xinjiang and some other regions, the climate was not suitable for potato planting. The suitable potato planting areas (including both suitable and high suitable) exceed 50% in all cases. (3) In the future, the low suitable and suitable areas for potato planting will increase greatly, while the high suitable areas will decrease. The order of areas of different suitable grades would remain: suitable areas>low suitable areas>high suitable areas. (4) With the increase of greenhouse gas emission level, the high suitable area in China would be greatly reduced. For spatial distribution, the high suitable areas were mainly in Northeast China, Gansu, western Xinjiang, and some parts of southwest China. From the perspective of time, the future climate change would greatly affect the northwest of Shaanxi, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the central and western Inner Mongolia and other regions. The climate suitability of potato planting would obviously decrease.

In this study, the integrated species distribution models were constructed to predict the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of potato climate suitable areas in the future. Northeast, Gansu, Southwest and other regions of China could be the main potato planting areas, while Xinjiang and other regions could be the main development areas. The rest regions should be given priority to the development of other staple crops and cash crops according to local conditions.