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Abstract: Climate change is affecting agricultural production and is expected to continue reducing water availability, potentially necessitating adaptation adjustment by related sectors to maintain sustainability of saline land use system highly vulnerable to water shortages. The drought in 2010 impacted the salt-affected land use system of the coastal region in Jiangsu Province, China. The main purpose of this paper is to determine which systems are least adaptive, and what factors limit their adaptive capacity to drought, among three typical saline land use systems of Jinhai farm located in the coastal reclamation region of north Jiangsu Province. An analytical framework for analyzing climate impacts and adaptation for saline agriculture is presented. To better understand climate change impacts and the adaptive capacity of saline land use systems, we conducted semi-structured interviews and group discussions with representatives of surrounding households and the farmer on Jinhai farm, experts and officials from government sectors and institutes. From these conversations two impact indicators were picked up and a set of determinants for adaptability and their rankings were derived. There is considerable variability in climate change impacts among different saline land use systems and a concentration of impacts on paddy systems. Adaptability in addition to climate change is cumulative to the impacts, particularly unsafe water resource planning, irrational land use mode and crop arrangement, and defective institutions and policies. Our results highlight the importance of a comprehensive and integrative land development planning involving water resource and land use arrangements participated in by representatives of stakeholders. Although there has been much progress in streamlining climate change assessments into sector planning in Dafeng – such as water resources, agriculture, beach and so on – it is clear that there is a need to improve institution, policy, market guidelines and technique R&D to ensure more consistent adaptation, especially considering the rapid evolution of the climate science behind the assessments. Achieving sustainable saline agriculture might require transformative changes in markets, policies, and science. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The crop yield deviations are more susceptible to change in temperature. • The level of climate change induced risk amounts to 1.3-5.3% of the average yields. • The risk leads to a considerable change in cropland use in Chinese farms. • Changing cropland use structure is an effective strategy of mitigating the risk. This paper estimates the climate change induced risk for 14 crops measured by the yield deviation using the panel data from seven counties in Jiangsu province in China from 1998 to 2017, and then investigates the risk effect on cropland use in a representative farm using the survey data and the MOTAD model. The results show that the crop yield deviation are more susceptible to change in temperature than that in sunlight and precipitation. The crop-specific risk level amounts to 1.3–5.3% of the average yields. The risk leads to reducing the cultivated areas by 6% and also causes a significant change in cropland use. As an effective adaptation strategy of mitigating the climate change induced risk, the farms should reduce the total cultivated area by about 15% in comparison with the observed situation while the cropland use structure should be adjusted accordingly. More cropland should be allocated to wheat, peanut and cotton but the other crop areas should be reduced or maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]