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Tea (Camellia sinensis L.), as one of the most important cash crops in China, plays an important role in increasing farmers' incomes and guaranteeing a high quality of life. Tea production has been greatly influenced by both climate change and economic development in China. However, without a scientific understanding of the interaction mechanism of climate change and the impetus from rapid economic development on tea production practices in China, it is difficult to take adaptive actions to meet the climate change challenges for the tea industry. In this paper, we firstly assessed the potential impacts of climate change on tea climate suitability by empirical formula calculation using meteorological data; then, the effects from the additional climatic stress due to warming on tea production were detected with the annual statistical tea yield record on a municipal level. The contribution of socioeconomic development to the tea industry was evaluated with the comparison of the movement of China's national economy's and tea industry's gravity center during the period of 1987–2017. Finally, a conceptual adaptation framework was built to demonstrate the interaction mechanisms between climate change, tea production, and the economic development. The results showed that there was a negative impact of climate change on tea production in mainland China, with the percentage of high tea climate suitability (>0.9) areas dropping by 45% to 32%, while opportunities of enlarging the tea cultivating area emerged in the north tea production region where the tea climate suitability increased. We found that the tea planting area expanded northwards from 33° N in 1987 to 35° N in 2017 to take advantage of the favorable climatic resources due to warming, and tea planting decreased at an altitude of 100–400 m while increasing to higher altitude of 400–2000 m to avoid hot temperature damage and seek the optimum environment in high mountainous areas for tea production. In addition, the tea production moved westward along the longitude, decreasing obviously at 117–121° E while increasing significantly at 98–104° E and 107–110° E. Meanwhile, the tea production gravity center showed a westward movement consistent with the national economic gravity center moving trend, which means that tea industry development was driven by multiple socioeconomic factors and climatic forcings. A conceptual framework was built in this paper, aiming to show a robust adaptation mechanism for the tea system to maximize the benefits and minimize the damages from the altered climatic resources under rapid economic development in mainland China. The results in this study would help deepen the understanding of the adaptation process and practices for tea production in mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is estimated to substantially reduce crop yields in Sub-Saharan West Africa by 2050. Yet, a limited number of studies also suggest that several adaptation measures may mitigate the effects of climate change induced yield loss. In this paper, we used AquaCrop, a process-based model developed by the FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy), to quantify the risk of climate change on several key cereal crops in the Niger Basin. The crops analyzed include maize, millet, and sorghum under rain fed cultivation systems in various agro-ecological zones within the Niger Basin. We also investigated several adaptation strategies, including changes in the sowing dates, soil nutrient status, and cultivar. Future climate change is estimated using nine ensemble bias-corrected climate model projection results under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 (RCP--Representative Concentration Pathway) emissions scenario at mid future time period, 2021/25-2050. The results show that on average, temperature had a larger effect on crop yields so that the increase in precipitation could still be a net loss of crop yield. Our simulated results showed that climate change effects on maize and sorghum yield would be mostly positive (2% to 6% increase) in the Southern Guinea savanna zone while at the Northern Guinea savanna zone it is mostly negative (2% to 20% decrease). The results show that at the Sahelian zone the projected changes in temperature and precipitation have little to no impact on millet yield for the future time period, 2021/25-2050. In all agro-ecological zones, increasing soil fertility from poor fertility to moderate, near optimal and optimal level significantly reversed the negative yield change respectively by over 20%, 70% and 180% for moderate fertility, near optimal fertility, and optimal fertility. Thus, management or adaptation factors, such as soil fertility, had a much larger effect on crop yield than the climatic change factors. These results provide actionable guidance on effective climate change adaptation strategies for rain fed agriculture in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]