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This paper tries to answer the question that whether farmers can adjust better to climate change in the short-term than in long-term by using panel data models and long difference models respectively. We find that short term weather shocks are less detrimental to maize yield than the long-term climate changes, which can be seen as the evidences of adaptations. For adaptation options, we find farmers choose to decrease maize planting area or enlarge the irrigation inputs to cope with the increase of extreme heat days; when there are more precipitations, farmers will increase the input of fertilizer or labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is not only an important ecological barrier in north China, but also an important agricultural production base and energy base in China, playing a very important role in China's economic and social development and ecological security. Under the combined actions of climate change and human activities, a series of ecological and environmental problems have emerged in the YRB, including degradation of glaciers and frozen soil, shortage of water resources, land desertification, aggravated soil and water loss, frequent floods and droughts, and reducing biodiversity. Warmer and wetter climate over the upper reaches and warmer and drier one in the middle and lower reaches have profoundly affected the ecological security of the YRB. In the future, the temperature in the YRB will continue to rise, extreme events will increase and the climate pattern of drought and water shortage will not be changed fundamentally, which will make the basin face more severe ecological security risks. For the current ecological problems and future ecological security risk challenges, it is necessary and urgent to take adaptive measures to deal with climate change and protect the ecological environment. The measures mainly include: strengthening the scientific research on the impact of climate change and extreme events on the ecological environment of the YRB and improving the ability of climate change risk management; strengthening the water conservation and protection in the upper reaches, the management of desert and soil erosion in the middle reaches and the ecological protection of water resources and wetlands in the lower reaches in the YRB and; collaborating with multiple departments to jointly tackle the ecological security challenges brought by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]