CITATION: Mamrutha HM, Khobra R, Sendhil R, Munjal R, Prasad SVS, Biradar S, Mavi GS, Dhar T, Bahadur R, Bhagwan JH, Prakash S, Singh H, Shukla RS, Srivastava M, Singh C, Gosavi AB, Salunke VD, Dhyani VC and GP Singh (2020). Developing stress intensity index and prioritizing hotspot locations for screening wheat genotypes under climate change scenario. Ecological Indicators, 118: 106714. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106714 1 Developing stress intensity index and prioritizing hotspot locations for screening wheat genotypes under climate change scenario Mamrutha HM*, Rinki Khobra * , R Sendhil * , Renu Munjal, SV Sai Prasad, Suma Biradar, GS Mavi, Tapamay Dhar, Raj Bahadur, JH Bhagwan, Surya Prakash, Hoshiyar Singh, RS Shukla, Meera Srivastava, Chandrakant Singh, AB Gosavi, VD Salunke, Vipin Chandra Dhyani, GP Singh. *corresponding authors mamrutha.M@icar.gov.in rinkikhobra@gmail.com r.sendhil@icar.gov.in Abstract Projected changes in the frequency and severity of climatic events are expected to negatively affect wheat yields. India being the sub-continent reflects all global climatic conditions is greatly prone to micro climatic changes. In this scenario, there is an exigency to relook into our abiotic hotspot centres for their consistency to use them for wheat germplasm screening. The present study is a first of its kind to analyze the status of drought and heat stress hotspots for wheat screening in India. We developed a unique analytical approach considering 11 years daily weather variables (indicators) like maximum and minimum temperature, maximum and minimum humidity and rainfall to re-prioritize the experimental locations according to their stress intensity index. The principal component analysis based indexing revealed that some of the locations like Dharwad, Indore, Pune and Parbhani are maintaining high stress intensity and a few centres like Kanpur, Faizabad and Malda are having lower stress intensity. Interestingly, Ranchi, a centre which was not recognized much as a hotspot earlier, but over years started to experience high drought stress in the recent decade. The study also indicates that the changes in minimum humidity have contributed significantly for the stress intensity. The outcome of the study will help researchers in prioritizing the experimental sites for screening wheat under heat and drought stress, in limited resource scenario and also to understand the micro environmental changes. Key words: Wheat, Drought, Heat, Climate change, Mann-Kendall, Weather variables. 1. Introduction Productivity of wheat will be of utmost importance for global food security as it is the most widely grown crop and being adapted to a broad range of latitudes, temperatures, water regimes and other agro-climatic vagaries. Abrupt climate change, diminishing natural resources, reduced input and competition for most fertile land by higher value crops threaten to further reduce potential productivity in wheat (Edmar et al.,2013; Ruchita and Rohit, 2017). While theoretically more land could be brought into wheat production, this is not desirable with reference to sustainability of the global ecosystem. The most practicable solution for these problems will be to increase wheat productivity on currently cultivated land through adoption of cultivars with improved genetic yield potential (Fisher and Edmeades, 2010) and adapted under a broad range of abrupt (Reynolds et al., 2009a; Reynolds et al., 2009b). The growth in wheat productivity has been stagnant in high yielding areas and hence, the other potential way to improve yield is to compensate the effect of abiotic stresses like drought and heat.