An Elucidation System for Climatic Change Effect on Agriculture in the Asian Monsoon Region

Abstract

Most of the countries in the Asian monsoon region are agricultural areas, and the impact of climate change on this region is very significant. Rainfed areas in particular are very vulnerable to extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. Moreover, the chage of the onset and period of the rainy season causes serious effects on yields and farming plans. We are developing an evaluation system for major crops in the Asian monsoon region affected by climate changes that can simulate the growth of major crops in this region. We selected Thailand as a target country. and DSSAT as a crop model. In 2012, we developed a prediction system to optimize the double cropping of rice and cassava in northeastern Thailand. We developed this system to identify and recommend bonus crops that can be grown during a dry season, and to simulate the effects of climate change in northeastern Thailand’s rainfed farming areas. In 2014 to simulate the effects of climate changes in the mountainous area of Thailand, we expanded the target area of the system to the northern mountain area, and we increased the number of crops in the model. The system executes crop model 365 times, while the start date is moved by one day each time, to identify the best start date using meteorological data that take climate change into consideration. The best start date and yield are summarized and shown on a map of the area being studied. The system is flexible and can be applied to other areas, as users are able to select crop models such as SIMRIW and ORYZA2000. The current areas of concern for the model include the execution time of several days needed to simulate tens of thousands of grid points and handling of the huge number of files output by the crop model. We are trying to apply multi-thread, Hadoop, and other devices to address these issues.