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Risks, Impacts, and Adaptation Menus for Study Countries
Map 3.3 Moldova: Effect of Climate Change on Average Annual Temperature through 2050 for the Three Climate Impact Scenarios a. Baseline
14.0
Average annual temperature for the Southern AEZ
Temperature (°C)
13.5 13.0 12.5 12.0 11.5 11.0 10.5 10.0 Base
2010s Base
b. Low impact
Climate impact scenarios, 2040s c. Medium impact
2020s 2030s Decade Low Medium
2040s High
d. High impact Temperature (ºC) 9.75–10.50 10.50–11.25 11.25–12.00 12.00–12.75 12.75–13.50 13.50–14.25
Sources: © Industrial Economics. Used with permission; reuse allowed via Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0). Country boundaries are from ESRI and used via CC BY 3.0.
availability are taken into account, are summarized in table 3.5. The results show that yields of all crops in Moldova’s agricultural sector except for apples will decrease under the medium-impact scenario, mainly as a result of heat and water stress. Crop yields decline across AEZs under the medium impact scenario. Particularly severe declines can be seen for wheat and alfalfa. Apple yields, on the other hand, remain relatively consistent, with irrigated yields in the southern AEZ and rainfed yields in the central AEZ declining slightly, and rainfed yields in the southern AEZ increasing slightly. The water resource management implications of climate change should also be of great concern in Moldova, because climate change both increases irrigation water demand and decreases overall water supply. For example, irrigation water demand increases for all scenarios and all crops relative to historical conditions by roughly 10–15 percent overall and to a greater degree during the summer months. At the same time, overall water availability declines because Looking Beyond the Horizon • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9768-8