Location specific climate change scenario and its impact on rice and wheat in Central Indian Punjab S.K. Jalota a , B.B. Vashisht a,⇑ , Harsimran Kaur a , Samanpreet Kaur b , Prabhjyot Kaur c a Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab 141004, India b Department of Soil & Water Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab 141004, India c School of Climate Change & Agricultural Meteorology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab 141004, India article info Article history: Received 19 February 2014 Received in revised form 17 June 2014 Accepted 29 July 2014 Available online 1 September 2014 Keywords: Climate scenario Rice–wheat system Yield Water and nitrogen balance Adaptation measures abstract A study was conducted to (i) derive future modeled climate data for different locations, (ii) assess the impact of location specific climate change scenario on crop duration, yield, water and nitrogen-balance and-use efficiency of rice–wheat system and (iii) evaluate delaying of trans-/planting date of crops as adaptation measures. Results indicate that in mid century (MC) and end century (EC) time slice of the 21st century, rainfall and temperature would increase; crop yields (simulated with cropping systems sim- ulation model) would decrease owing to shortening of crop duration. In MC (2021–2050) and EC (2071– 2098), evapotranspiration, transpiration, drainage and irrigation requirement would decrease and soil water evaporation would increase. However, their magnitudes would vary with the location. The water use efficiency of rice and wheat crops would increase in MC. The agronomic efficiency of applied nitrogen is more in rice than that in wheat during present time slice (1998–2009) and this difference would amplify in MC and EC. Nitrogen recovery efficiency is more in wheat and the difference would reduce in EC. Crop yield and water & nitrogen use efficiency reveal relations with time slice and soil profile characteristics of the location. Delaying trans-/planting of rice by 15 days in MC; and of wheat by 15–21 days in MC and EC emerged as the best adaptation measures to sustain yield of rice–wheat system at all locations. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Increasing concentration of CO 2 and other green house gases has resulted in a 0.74 ± 0.18 °C rise in global average temperature over the past 100 years (Trenberth and Jones, 2007). IPCC report (2014) predicts a rise of global surface temperature within range of 0.4–2.6 °C in 2046–2065 and 0.3–4.8 °C in 2081–2100 relative to the reference period of 1986–2005. Indo-Gangetic plain is likely to experience a 0.5–1.0 °C rise in average temperatures during mid century (MC) and 3.5–4.5 °C rise in end century (EC); and increased frequency of extremely wet rainy seasons (Gosain and Rao, 2007). Although, there is considerable uncertainty about future, yet the changes in spatial and temporal pattern in climatic variables due to global warming are being studied (Chattopadhya and Hulme, 1977; Georgiadi et al., 1991; Iglesias et al., 1994; Feddema, 1999). In Central Indian Punjab, rice–wheat is the dominant crop- ping system. At present time, the productivity of rice and wheat at research farms is 6.0–8.4 and 4.7–5.6 t ha 1 , respectively (Jalota et al., 2009b, 2011; Brar et al., 2012). To sustain rice–wheat system in future, it is important to understand the impact of climate change on the productivity and use efficiency of water and fertil- izer of the main cropping systems at different locations in the region. The favorable effect of elevated CO 2 and unfavorable effect of high temperature and their interactions on crop production are well documented in the literature (Kimball et al., 2002; Baker et al., 1992; Lal et al., 1998; Jalota et al., 2009a; Kaur et al., 2012). Though in most of these studies (with free air carbon dioxide enrichment experiments (FACE), open top chamber (OTC), temperature gradi- ent tunnel (TGT) and crop modeling), climate variability/change was created in a single parameter (temperature or CO 2 ), keeping the others as such yet these formed a base for understanding the climate change impact on crop yields in future. In actual, it is the integrated effect of all climate parameters such as temperature, CO 2 , rainfall, solar radiation, relative humidity etc. that determine the crop yield. The integrated effect of climate parameters on crop growth, biomass, water balance, nitrogen balance on daily basis is generally assessed with models like decision support system agro- technology transfer (DSSAT) and cropping system simulation (CropSyst). Under climate change scenario, daily weather data is mostly derived from general circulation models (GCM) and regio- nal climate models (RCM). But the raw outputs from these models often suffer from systematic errors, which prevent its use as such http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2014.07.009 0308-521X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Agricultural Systems 131 (2014) 77–86 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Agricultural Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy