ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT AND FUTURE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY ON MAIZE YIELD IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

IPCC predicts that climate change will have an impact on agriculture in the future and increase the risk of hunger and water scarcity, the world will need to expand agricultural output to feed an estimated nine billion people by 2050. Therefore, more focus has been placed on the effects of climate change that account for uncertainty in climate projections and the adaptation of crops to it. Agricultural system in Kano State depends largely on natural rainfall as the main source of crop production, and thus, exposed to spatial and temporal variability of the climatic parameters of rainfall and temperature. This study used the GIS and Remote Sensing tool to generate current and future temperature and precipitation maps of Kano State, Nigeria using data obtained from NASA power, CRU and CHIRPS for current scenarios and GCM’s CMIP6 for the future scenarios. The results showed an increase in temperature and precipitation in the future through the SSP5,8.5, which might impact the maize yield positively or negatively. A non-parametric statistic of Mann Kendall and Sen.’s slope estimator alongside multiple linear regression was conducted on the observed data to check the trend of temperature and precipitation over the years, at the same time the regression analysis was done to check whether the dependent variable (maize) can be affected by the independent variables (temperature and precipitation). The findings showed that precipitation and temperature have no significance on maize yield in the study area. Furthermore, for future climate projections and impacts on maize yield, crop data was analyzed in DSSAT model to simulate and forecast future maize yield in the study area. The findings of which leads to the recommendation that other variables such as soil moisture, crop varieties, irrigation and climate smart agricultural practices be considered for effective increase in maize yield in the study area.