Abstract:

Water scarcity affects the stability and sustainable development of agricultural productivity in the North China Plain (NCP). Climate change has noticeable impacts on agricultural water resources. NCP faced a drying trend since 1950. Although the potential evapotranspiration in NCP show a decreased trend, the actual evapotranspiration will have an increasing trend in the near 30 years. Even the precipitation will be increasing significantly in the future; the effect of air warming overtakes the precipitation enhancement, leading to a decreasing trend of rainfall surplus, which will exaggerate the drought severity. The increasing trends in crop evapotranspiration and irrigation demand will change the pattern of water balance, the water deficit in north part of NCP will be exaggerated and the rainfall surplus in the south part of NCP will decrease. Adjusting the proportion and pattern of crops with high water consumption, reducing agricultural water consumption are the efficient ways to improve adaptive capabilities of agricultural system.