title: Chinese rice production area adaptations to climate changes, 1949-2010.
abstract: Climate change has great impact on cropping system. Understanding how the rice production system has historically responded to external forces, both natural and anthropogenic, will provide critical insights into how the system is likely to respond in the future. The observed historic rice movement provides insights into the capability of the rice production system to adapt to climate changes. Using province-level rice production data and historic climate records, here we show that the centroid of Chinese rice production shifted northeastward over 370 km (2.98°N in latitude and 1.88°E in longitude) from 1949 to 2010. Using a linear regression model, we examined the driving factors, in particular climate, behind such rice production movement. While the major driving forces of the rice relocation are such social economic factors as urbanization, irrigation investment, and agricultural or land use policy changes, climate plays a significant role as well. We found that temperature has been a significant and coherent influence on moving the rice center in China and precipitation has had a significant but less spatially coherent influence.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Agri-informatics, Ministry of Agriculture/Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences , Beijing 100081, China.
authors.forename: Zhengguo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Zhenhuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Weston
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Wenbin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Huajun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Liangzhi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: You
mesh_terms: D057914:Agricultural Irrigation / Q000639:trends; D000383:Agriculture / Q000639:trends*; D002681:China; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change / Q000266:history*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000639:trends; D062305:Geographic Mapping; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012275:Oryza / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000266:history; D011891:Rain; D013696:Temperature; D014507:Urbanization / Q000639:trends