Man-Land Relationship

Impacts of El Nino-Southern Oscillation events on China’s rice production

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  • 1. Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    2. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    3. Central Finance University, Beijing 100081, China;
    4. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA;
    5. University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195, USA

Received date: 2009-05-15

  Revised date: 2009-10-20

  Online published: 2010-02-15

Supported by

US National Natural Science Foundation, No.0624359; Knowledge Innovation Program of the CAS, No.KSCX1-YW-09; No.KZCX2-YW-305-2; National Key Technology R&D Program of China, No.2006BAC08B06; No.2008BAK50B06; No.2008BAK47B02; No.2008BAC44B04; China State Major Project for Water Pollution Control and Management, No.2009ZX07106-001

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate the relationships between ENSO and rice production of Jiangxi province in order to identify the reason that ENSO might have little effect on Chinese rice production. Using a data set with measures of Jiangxi’s climate and rice production, we find the reason that during 1985 and 2004 ENSO’s well correlated with rainfall did not promote Chinese rice production. First, the largest effects of ENSO mostly occur in the months when there is no rice in the field. Second, there is almost no temperature effect. Finally, the monthly distribution of rainfall is almost the same in ENSO and neutral years because the largest effects are during months when there is the least rain. In addition, due to the high irrigation share and reliable and effective irrigation facilities of cultivated land, China’s rice production is less climate-sensitive.

Cite this article

DENG Xiangzheng, HUANG Jikun, QIAO Fangbin, Rosamond L. Naylor, Walter P. Falcon, Marshall Burke, Scott Rozelle, David Battisti . Impacts of El Nino-Southern Oscillation events on China’s rice production[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2010 , 20(1) : 3 -16 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-010-0003-6

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