The effects of climate change on crop productivity in the Netherlands

The effects of climate change on crop productivity in the Netherlands

Xiangqi Matr. No.:……

Robert Matr. No.:……

Abstract

Climate change has already become a reality in the Netherlands. The average yearly temperature keeps rising and precipitation pattern keepschanging. The situation became more severe from 1980 to 2010. The climate change scenario put forth several positive and negative effects on crop production in the Netherlands. For the positive effect, the growing season had been prolonged for the whole period. This extension stems from higher temperature setting potentialsfor higher crop productivity. The negative effects are viewed in terms of floods, dry conditions, droughts, and proliferation of pests and diseases. First of all, the rise insea level caused by rising temperature increased flood risks leading to the continuous expansion of flood-prone areas. Furthermore, changing patterns of precipitation and precipitation deficit, constant dry conditions and even droughts occurred in the whole period.Fresh waterdeficiency and soil salinization directly caused several sharp reductions of crop growth and output from 1980 to 2010. Moreover, the longer growing season gave opportunity to increase the number of pests and diseases, andmoreover generation of new species. In response to the effects of climate change, policies, strategies, facilities and other preventive measures have been taken in order to ensure high agricultural productivity in the Netherlands.

Key words:

Temperature, Precipitation, Floods, Dry conditions, Droughts, Pests and diseases, Strategy 1Introduction

Climate change, which is indeed happening, has been realized as one of the primary issues that prevent the global development. The effects of climate change, which cover environment, economy, social etc., almost every aspect of life, are numerous and cannot be ignored, both in negative and positive ways (Mooij et al., 2005). Crop productivity, as well as the livelihood of people who depend on it, are especially vulnerable to climate change (World Bank, 2003). More specifically, climate change could potentially impact global scale agriculture given that it is strongly influence by temperatures and precipitation. This because of the climate variability and consequent soil quality changes, farmers can flexible dealing with them through changing the farming system, establishing new infrastructure, and transferring crops structure etc. All these responses have a result in change of crop productivity. As a result, it is necessary to figure out the effects of climate change on agriculture productivity so that appropriate adaption can be proposed to reduce the vulnerabilities. The Netherlands, as a country with developed agriculture sector and high crop productivity, has been chosen as object in this study. The Netherlands experienced a relatively sharp temperature increase in the past 30 years, and this change affected ecosystems, biodiversity, agriculture, public health, water quality, and flood safety in different extent. For agriculture, climate change can affect agriculture in positive way. The higher temperature and longer growing season can provide opportunities to cultivate new crops, and reduce energy bills in the greenhouse horticulture sector (PBL, 2012). However, there are also negative effects. The rising temperature can cause sea level rise, as a result, the floods risks increased lead to increase in pests and diseases, storage more problematic. Moreover, droughts and dry conditions caused by the changing precipitation patterns can result in loss of crop yields. Changes in the mean climate away from the current state require taking measures in order to maintain crop productivity. In other instance, the optimum type of farming may change in

response to the issues induced by climate change. Hence, in this paper, an integrated statement of effects of climate change on crop production from 1980 to 2010, and the local responses to climate change areprovided.

2Materials and methods 2.1Study area

The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy country with a parliamentary system. It forms part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and this consists of Netherlands itself, which including twelve provinces (Fig.1) and six islands in the Caribbean.The Netherlands covers a total area of 41.526 km2, with 4572 km2for irrigated land (PermanentMission of the Kingdomof the Netherlands to the UniteNations, 2014).It is bordered to the north and west by the North Sea, with a coastline of 451 km，Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east. The Netherlands is a low-land country with half of its surface area lying less than 1m above sea level, while the lowest point is at -6.67m and highest point on continental Netherlands is 322m. About 20% of its surface area and 21% of its population are located below sea level. The Netherlands is rich in natural resources including arable land, natural gas, limestone, salt, sand and gravel and so on. Among land use in the Netherlands, arable land takes up 25.08%, permanent crops accounts for 0.88% while other land use takes up 74.04%.

Figure 1.The map of the Netherlands (SSPX, 2013; Emapsworld, 2012)

In the Netherlands, agriculture constitutes an important activity in the economic sector employing 4% of the labor force. More than 27% of its total land area is under seasonal or permanent crops production (Netherlands-Agriculture, 2009).

2.2Data collection and analysis

The data for the average daily temperatures (℃) andprecipitation (mm) from 1980 to 2010 were obtained from the observation station in De Bilt, which is published on official website of Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).The average yearly temperature and precipitation comparison in the Netherlands from 1980 to 2010 was conducted. Furthermore dataon total harvested production and crop yields per hectare were collected from official website of European Commission. In terms of environmental issues induced by climate change, information was collected from several formal and informal studies (De Moel et al., 2010;Van Lanen, 2006;Beersma et al., 2007; Centre for Climatic Adaptation, 2013). The analyses of the data were based on examining the effects induced by climate change with reference to changesin average temperatures and precipitation on crop production over the past three decades. This was carried out, in order to figure out how changes intemperature and precipitation as major climatic variables affect crop productivity in the study area and the responses offered to counter the effects.

3Results

3.1Climate change with reference to

mean temperature and

precipitation

Data of monthly temperature and yearly temperature are provided in Fig.2. Besides, the average yearly precipitations from 1980 to 2013 are shown in Fig.3. The monthly temperatures are compared in three periods, which are ranged from 1980 to 1990, 1991 to 1999, and 2000 to 2010 respectively, as shown in Fig. 2 (a). During the whole period from

1980 to 2010, the highest temperature of a year occurred in July, while the lowest temperature happened in February. Moreover, if comparing three periods, the peak of 2000 to 2010, i.e.18.4 ℃, is slightly higher than other two periods. The lowest value presented in period from 1980 to 1989, which is 1.44 ℃,lower than the minimum values of other two periods.

Figure 2.Average monthly temperature for three periods (a) and average yearly temperature (b)

For average yearly temperature, although 2010 has been the coldest year in the Netherlands since 1996, the multi-year average temperature in the Netherlands was still rising, as shown in Fig.2(b). The lowest average yearly temperature for the whole period occurred in 1985 with 8.5℃, and the highest value occurred in 2006 and 2007 with 11.2℃.From 2007 to 2009, the value keeps higher than 10 ℃, while before 2007, the average yearly temperature is around 10 ℃.According to the data provided by KNMI, the average yearly temperature from 1950 to 1980 is rarely higher than 10℃. FromTab.1, it is obvious that average temperature has an increase trend, with 6.4% and 14.06 % respectively.

Table 1. Mean temperature, total precipitation and standard deviation SD: standard deviation

Period Temperature (℃) Precipitation(mm) Mean SD Annnual average SD

1980-1989 9.56 0.71 792.52 193.7 1990-1999 10.17 0.72 831.04 2008.3 2000-2010 11.60 1.10 857.10 1101.2

Furthermore, the standard deviation shows an increase from second period to third period, which presents that the yearly climatic pattern changed more from 2000 to 2010, compared with first two periods.

Figure 3.Annual precipitation from 1980 to 2010

The annual average precipitation of every period is also presented in increasing trend from Tab.1, with 4.9% and 3.1% respectively. Meanwhile, the standard deviation, which rises sharply, shows that the precipitation pattern in whole country is severely imbalanced. According to Fig.3, annual precipitation varies greatly from year to year.The lowest annual precipitation occurred in 1996 with 568mm, while the highest annual precipitation presented in 1998 with 1241.6mm. Based on the 2011 annual report of KNMI, the annual precipitation now is more than 20% higher than a century ago, and this increase has occurred mainly in the winter and the coastal zone.

3.2 Crop productivity

Influenced by several factors,both total harvested production and crop yields per hectare show increase in different extent from 1980 to 2010 in the Netherlands. As show in Fig.4, the harvested production presents a generally rising trend, along with fluctuation. The highest harvested production in the whole

period occurred in 2009, with 2088.8 ×103t, meanwhile the lowest harvested production occurred in 1987, with 1105.9×103t. From 2000 on, the productions keeps higher than 1500×103t, while before 1993, the production is lower than this, and around 1200 ×103 t.

Figure 4. Total harvested production from 1980 to 2010

Figure 5. Crop yields from 1980 to 2010 per hectare

For the crops yields from 1980 to 2010 in the Netherlands (Fig. 5), the change trend is

similar with harvested production, rising with wave. From 1992 on, crop yield keeps higher

0.0

0.51.01.52.02.51980198119821983198419851986198719881989199019911992199319941995199619971998199920002001200220032004200520062007200820092010

H a r v e s t e d p r o d u c t i o n (106 t )

than 7000kg?ha-1, and reached highest in 2009, and the lowest value occurred in 1980. And the average yearly crops yield from 1980 to 1991 is 6490 kg?ha-1, while the average yearly value from 1992 to 2010 is 8020 kg?ha-1, increased 23.6%. After 2000, both harvested production and crop yields reached lowest in 2007.

3.3Environmental issues induced by

climate change

Along with the rising temperature and changing precipitation pattern, there are some effects induced which influenced crop production in the Netherlands.

Due to the rising temperature, risks of floods caused by sea-level rise also increased in the Netherlands. According to the study of Hans de Moel et al., the amount of urban area which can possibly become inundated due of floods has increased six-folder during the 20th country in the Netherlands. From the Tab.2, the urban areas in flood-prone zone are increased from 1980 to 2000, and this rising trend will keep until 2015, increased 50.5% compared with it in 1980. The percentage of urban area in flood-prone zone is also presented in rising trend, and until 2015, it is 1.6% more than it in 1980. From the average inundation depth of urban area in flood-prone zone, it is obviousthat the sea-level rise sharply from 2000 to 2015. As arable areas in the Netherlands take up 25.08%, which is much higher than percentage of urban area, i.e.

12.58%, the increase of urban area in floods-prone zone can give a clue of increase of arable lands in floods-prone zone.

Table 2.The urban area in flood-prone zone change for every decade of 1980, 1990, 2000 (De Moel et al., 2010) Year 1980 1990 2000 2015 Urban area in flood-prone zone (ha) 106,572 110,013 123,842 160,460

Urban area in flood-prone zone as %

of total urban area

29.7% 29.8% 30.1% 31.3% Average inundation depth of urban

area in flood-prone zone (m)

1.60m 1.58m 1.57m 1.65m Note: The results of 2015 is results of land use allocation model

Besides the floods, extreme weather events have occurred more frequently.In the Netherlands, 70% of the available freshwater supply is from the Rhine and Meuse rivers, and the rest of 30% comes from precipitation, which means river discharge and precipitation patterns can cause a significant effect on water availability (PBL, 2012).The changing precipitation patterns induce the occurrence of dry condition and other extreme weather events in the past 30 years. Based on the measurements by KNMI during 30 years in the 1976 - 2005 period, extreme weather events with highest frequency is wet fields, while droughts carries the lowest frequency, and April became the month with most extreme weather events. The other extreme weather events were including warm winter, heavy rainfall, and extended wet periods. Furthermore, drought is another primary issue caused by climate change. Although from 1980 to 2010, no year is as dry as 1976, which is the driest year since the beginning of observations, the precipitation deficit keeps increasing, reached 220mm in 2003 (Centre for Climatic Adaption, 2013). During the summer months, rising temperatures results to heat waves. This may become longer and more frequent causing drought periods to occur more frequently. Drought can also increase sharply with falling precipitation levels in the summer.Because of droughts, the average groundwater level presented a decreasing trend from 1980 to 2010. Three sharp drops occurred in three period, 1989 to 1994, 1996 to 1998, 2003 to 2006, and lowest groundwater level occurred in 1996 (Van Lanen,2006).

4Discussion

4.1Climate change and crop productivity

Agriculture in the Netherlands constitutes an important sector in the economy. The agricultural sector has for centuries dominated the landscape and the environment in the rural areas (Van der Heide et al., 2011). The principal elements that influence Netherlands agriculture include environmental conditions, the economy, European agricultural policy and consumer demand. However from the 1980s till present, climate change has exerted a significant impact on the agricultural sector in the Netherlands. The effects have been both

positive and negative.

The positive effect of climate change on Netherlands agriculture is mainly higher productivity resulting from longer growing season induced by high temperatures(Rotter et al., 1999). In the past 15 years the growing season was on average more than three weeks longer than in the period 1961 to 1990 (KNMI,2011).According to the record of KNMI, the growing season kept rising from 1980 to 2010, with an increase 14.5% until 2010.The current trend of the growing season indicates that there are a good number of days per year with over 5 ℃in the Netherlands. As shown in Fig.6, the number of days per year over 5℃after 1990 was around 300 days, while before 1990 was lower than this value, around 250 days.

Figure 6. Length of growing season

However, multiple negative effects cannot be ignored. The floods risks are expected to increase further as sea level rise and river discharges increase. Floods, once happening, will cause significant irreversible losses of crop production in the Netherlands.The last floods happened in 1953, as a result of this, almost 200,000 hectares of lands was flooded, 3,000 farms were damaged, and the once fertile soil was unusable for many years. The reduction of arable soil exerted an influence to crop production until 21st century (Deltawerken, 2004).

Moreover, dry conditions do occur regularly during the longer growing seasons. This inhibits crop growth and to an extent makes the soils to become more saline. The Salinity of surface and the shallow underground water (Acacia Water, 2009) impedes the uptake of water and nutrients by crops from the ground. More so saline conditions can lead to leaf damage and other crop growth deformations in

the ground. Many coastal areas in the south west and north of the Netherlands already contend with increasing salt concentrations in the underground and surface water(Klijn et al., 2011).

The vulnerability of agricultural sector to droughts differs among farm types, cultivation methods and regions in the Netherlands.In dry summers, crops cannot be able to extract the amount of water need for optimum growth. This causes production losses in agriculture.As shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, the reduction of total harvestedproduction and crop yields per hectare in 2006 and 2007 were caused largely by droughts in these two years (Beersma et al., 2007). Besides, the reduction from 1992 to 1994, 1996 to 1998, and 2003 to 2006, were mainly influenced by drop of groundwater level in these three periods to a great extent. According to the Delta Program Report of 2013, accrued losses to agricultureamount to 0.4 billion a year in yield due to drought. In the Netherlands, sprinkling facilities are not designed for these conditions and the withdrawal of groundwater for irrigation in dry summer is strictly regulated (Centre for Climatic Adaption, 2013). Moreso, the sprinkling capacity cannot be used fully when the surface water becomes too salty. The saltiness is caused by freshwater deficiency. The search for solutions to freshwater shortages during dry periods therefore presents a major challenge to the agricultural sector. Areas that have little or no access to water from rivers or ditches, and areas where the water table is low, are the most vulnerable (Klijn et al., 2010). This challenge only becomes greater as a result of climate change (PBL, 2011).In a nutshell,changing patterns in precipitation have a considerable effect on water availability. In a situation where extremely dry years become more common or more severe, the average precipitation deficit could rise greatly. Such dry conditions can lead to significant loss in crop yields(KNMI, 2012).

Furthermore, climate change leads to changes in the distribution, frequency and intensity of fungal diseases, insect pests and weeds in the Netherlands (Van de Sandtet al., 2012). Warmer winters, longer growing seasons, and wetter conditions in combination with higher temperatures may lead to an increase in the number of generations of existing insects, and many species of aphids, beetles and potato

cyst nematodes (Blomet al., 2008).Phytophthorainfestans, a deadly potato disease, is a typical example for this. Moreover, new species for pests and diseases are possibly brought by longer growing season, which can have significant effects on crop growth and production. An example is the western corn rootworm, which appeared in the Netherlands in 2004 and caused considerable damage to maize production. Blue tongueis another example. This is a virusthat affects sheep and goats. Itfirst appeared in 2006. It is possible that, the extremely hot summer of that year had a part to play in this(Scholte et al., 2008).

4.2The policy responses to the effects

of climate change

The key principles underlying the adaptation options to climate change in the Netherlands are resistance, resilience and flexibility. The climate-related risks of flooding from the sea and the rivers are particularly pertinent to the Netherlands. The National Policy Strategy for Infrastructure and Spatial Planning identifies the reservation of areas for flood control, ensuring sustainable freshwater supplies as issues of national interests. To this effect, responses to the effects of climate change in the Netherlands started to be articulated, when the inter-authority-programme, Spatial Adaptation to Climate Change, wasestablished in 2006.This programme brought together among others ministries ofHousing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, and Water Management. TheprogrammeSpatial Adaptation to Climate Changeled to various local and regional initiatives, which are still continuing.

In 2007, the National Adaptation Strategy 2007–2014 was adopted (Willem et al., 2011). This program covers many policy fields, such as, nature conservation, agriculture, water management, pests and disease control. The Disease Prevention and Control collaborate with national health institutes of the EU member states to monitor the distribution of species. This is because as climate zones shift, the distribution of species can change including the distribution of vector borne diseases. In 2010, the Delta Programme was launched. This program contains new government priorities

for climate risks and climate adaptation, with an emphasis on flood safety, freshwater supplies, spatial planning and urban restructuring and development measures to tackle the problems of heavy rainfall, drought and heat. For example in the Rhine-Meus delta, open land areas are and must be reserved to accommodate potentially higher river discharges together with high sea levels. More so, building designs such as building on stilts have been design to minimize flooding. The primary aim of the establishment of these programme and policies is providing the direction of optional measures to prevent crop production losses from climate change.

5Conclusions

Generally,from 1980 to 2010, the average yearly temperature kept rising and precipitation pattern kept changing in the Netherlands, which had inducedseveral effectsoncrop productivity. Based on time series analyses of average temperatures and precipitation data from the 1980s, the observed increase in temperatures and precipitation had significantly prolong the growing seasons in the Netherlands. This had to a greater extent resulted to higher agricultural productivity. However, rising temperatures and increase precipitations also set in some negative aspects that tend to compromise agricultural productivity. These aspects includedincreased flood risks, dry conditions, droughts, and a breeding ground for the generation of pests and disease. All there effects caused the reduction of crop productivity to different degree. Faced with such adversities, the Netherlands government has put in place a series of responses to counter the negative effects induced by climate change.

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