Prediction of Climate Change Impact on Corn Grown in the South of Morocco Using the Saltmed Model

Abstract

Abstract Climate change is currently considered a major concern for humanity. Future climate projections carried out for the Souss region in the south of Morocco show that temperature will increase by 3 °C and precipitation will dramatically decrease by 63% towards the end of the twenty‐first century. This will have negative impacts on water resource availability in the Souss region which is already suffering from water scarcity. In this study, 'baseline data' based on field experiments, as well as climate change scenarios, were implemented in the SALTMED model to simulate climate change impact. After successful calibration and validation of the SALTMED model for three growing seasons with supplied ‘baseline data’ for Sweet corn, the SALTMED model was run in forecasting mode to obtain future projections of crop evapotranspiration and crop productivity under a changing climate. The obtained results suggested that with increasing temperature, crop evapotranspiration is expected to increase by 15% while crop water requirements are expected to decrease by 13% as a result of the shortening growth season of corn, expected to be 20 days earlier. Crop productivity could exhibit a reduction of 2.5% towards the end of the twenty‐first century. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.