Climate change projections – A district-wise analysis for rainfed regions in India.

Abstract

Rainfed agriculture is practised in arid, semi-arid and dry-sub-humid- regions of the country. The climate projections are reported generally at the all India level or at the resolution of grids of different dimensions. This paper attempted to derive and report the climate projections given by the PRECIS for A1B scenario in the form agriculturally relevant variables for 220 districts where rainfed agriculture is predominant. Districts with an average rainfall of less than 1500 mm and are included either in DPAP or DDP and those with less than 30 per cent of net sown area under irrigation are included in the study. The climate projections provided at a grid size of 50 x 50 km are converted into district level estimates. Annual rainfall is projected to increase by more than five per cent in 173 districts and decrease by more than five per cent in 42 districts during the mid-century compared to the baseline. The later part of the century is likely to be much wetter with 205 districts showing an increase in rainfall by more than five percent and only five districts projected to receive relatively less rainfall. The number of rainy days is projected to not change much in a majority of districts during the both periods. The end-century is likely to witness much variability in the onset of monsoon, which is projected to arrive late by more than five days in 42 districts. Incidence of drought is observed to increase in 62 districts during midcentury and in 134 districts during the end-century. The average maximum temperature is projected to increase by 1.5 to 20 C in a majority of districts during mid-century and by more than 20 C in a few districts. Temperature is likely to be much warmer during the end-century with projections of 3.5 to 40 C in most districts. These projections have implications to planning and targeting technology development and transfer as well as planning for development interventions.