title: Modeling the water-satisfied degree for production of the main food crops in China.
abstract: Water resources are one of the important factors that influence regional crop production and the food security of humans. Most traditional models of crop water demand analysis are built on the basis of a certain crop or macroscopic analysis, which neglect regional crop allocation and the difference of water demand in different crop growing periods. In this paper, a new assessing model, the satisfied degree of crop water requirement, is developed to assess the impacts of water resources on production of six main food crops in China. The six main food crops are spring wheat, winter wheat, corn, early season rice, middle-season rice and late rice. The results show that: (1) there are serious risks of water shortage in China, even in south China with its abundant precipitation; (2) the satisfied degree of crop water demand represents great temporal-spatial changes. On spatial distribution the risks are high in major bases of food production due to influences of cropping system and crop-combinations. Northwest China is a special interesting case. In seasonal fluctuation water shortage is severe in March and September. These risks seriously restrict food production in China. The results also show that the strategic measures of water resources management must be chosen carefully to deal with food security and regional sustainable development in China.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Hubei Province 430079, China; College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China. Electronic address: yu_guangming@163.com.
authors.forename: Guangming
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Yumeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Hubei Province 430079, China; College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Zhenfa
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Hubei Province 430079, China; College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jie
authors.affiliation: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Qiwu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Hailong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Ruirui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoxu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Hubei Province 430079, China; College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China.
authors.forename: Hongzhi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods; D018556:Crops, Agricultural; D005523:Food Supply; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014881:Water Supply / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: China; Crop water requirements; Food production; Regional water balance; Water resource management; Water-satisfied degree