Impacts of Climate Change on the Plant Water Interactions

Climate change has an impact on ecosystem structure and function globally by altering the relationships between plants and soil organisms. Despite the fact that water is the most plentiful molecule on Earth's surface, water scarcity is the element that most severely limits global terrestrial plant production. Little is known about the climatic factors that drive phenological responses to climate change, and less attention has been paid to the fact that phenology is also responsive to other climatic. The aim of this study was to assess the impacts of climate change on plant water interactions. This study was guided by the specific objectives, which included examining the relationship between climate change and plant function; finding out the impacts of climate change on plant water interactions; and assessing how plants handle water scarcity. It was found that there was a linkage between climate change and plant function. The evaporation of water molecules from the outer surfaces of the mesophyll cells initiates the upward transpiration pull in the leaves, and respiring starches and sugars are created during photosynthetic processes using sunlight energy. Climate change enhanced the most enormous movement of species that has occurred without direct human intervention. It was also found that precipitation was a key driver of phenological changes in desert ecosystems. It was also found that drought was one of the most significant biotic challenges faced by plants, with considerable genetic variation in water deficit responses. There is a need for research on climate change to ease biodiversity conservation. Keywords: Climate change, Plant water interactions, Plant, Water DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/87-01 Publication date:September 30th 202

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) for Sustainable Agriculture Nexus: A Tool for Transforming Food Systems

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is a global strategy for enhancing food productivity amidst climate change uncertainties in the 21st century. CSA improves farmers’ incomes, reduces greenhouse emissions, and farming systems become resilient to climate change. Despite the vital role that CSA plays in the development of the agricultural industry and the economy, the extent to which CSA is related to sustainable agriculture (SA) is not well documented. Is CSA the same as SA? If they are the same, do CSA practices impose mitigation requirements for developing countries like Uganda? Studies or research on CSA and SA unfortunately have certain shortcomings. Lack of this knowledge makes it difficult to plan investments and develop policies that will increase farmers’ resilience to climate change and variability to improve SA. This study is aimed at assessing how CSA links to SA and whether the two contribute to climate change mitigation requirements. It was found that CSA and SA are also related in a way that the latter leads to lowering greenhouse gas emissions hence mitigating climate change. CSA and SA share a common principal goal of achieving food security. It was concluded that developing countries are the worst affected by the negative impacts of climate change and don’t have the adaptive capacity to respond to climate change effects

Long-term climate change and anthropogenic activities together with regional water resources and agricultural productivity in Uganda using Google Earth Engine

Uganda with its fragile ecosystem, large-scale human activities, and increasing population pressure, all of which combined, make this region increasingly susceptible to climate variation. This study examined the long-term trends of annual, seasonal, and monthly distributions of rainfall and temperature from 2001 to 2021 together with crop-wise agricultural productivity. For the analysis, we obtained CHIRPS-V2.0 (Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station Data version 2.0) rainfall, Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Surface Temperature (LST), DMSP nighttime lights, ESA land cover attribution, and international crop production assessment records. Subsequently, several non-parametric statistical applications were applied to check the long-term spatio-temporal trends of climate parameters and their inter-relationship at higher significance using the Google Earth Engine platform. The investigation reveals an annual increase in LST, averaging 0.01 °C/year along with decreasing rainfall (1.89 mm/year). However, regional climate trends are largely elevation-dependent, which are predominantly subjected to the northern part of the study area witnessing a slight decrease in LST and thereby increased rainfall. Moreover, the long-term spatial nexus estimation divulges a potent inverse association between rainfall and temperature in the north and northeastern regions of the study area. Concurrently, changing patterns also have led to a decline in crop production and deterioration in water availability, which is accompanied by various other abnormalities, including the scarcity of water resources and anthropogenic activities. Changing climate has had significant implications on crop production, largely on corn and soybean as long-term shifts influence it in average rainfall and temperature, yearly fluctuations, and disturbances during various growth stages

Water Accounting and Productivity Analysis to Improve Water Savings of Nile River Basin, East Africa: From Accountability to Sustainability

Complete water accounting (WA) and crop water productivity (CWP) analysis is crucial for evaluating water use efficiency (WUE). This study aims to evaluate the contributions of hydro-meteorological factors to the changes of WA and CWP and subsequent WUE based on the data from 2009–2020 in the Nile River Basin (NRB), East Africa (EA). The Mann-Kendall (MK) statistical test and Sen’s slope estimator were applied to detect the trends of climatic factors, and the AquaCrop model was used to simulate the crop yields in response to water balance and consumption based on crop physiological, soil water, and salt budget concepts. For the years 2012 and 2019, the mean of climatic water deficit P − ETa was 71.03 km3 and 37.03 km3, respectively, which was expected to rise to ~494.57 km3 by 2050. The results indicated that the basin water budget was unbalanced due to the coupled impact of year-to-year hot and dry conditions and increase in water abstraction, an indication of water deficit or stress. CWP and WUE increased during the study period with different changing patterns. CWP was also found to correlate to the yield of major crops (p-value > 0.05). It was concluded that climatic factors influenced the crop yield, CWP, and WUE in the study area. Thus, the improvement of CWP and WUE should rely on advanced water-saving innovations. The findings of this study could help water managers to improve water productivity by focusing on water account potentials and creating regional advantages by deploying water in combination with surplus flow from upstream to downstream consumption