Four decades of temperature extremes reshape regional wheat yields and adaptation in China.
Han, Wanrui; Wang, Shengnan; Ma, Lijuan; Ali, Muhammad Fraz; Lin, Xiang; Wang, Dong
Journal of environmental management
DOI：10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.126271
Abstract
Understanding crop responses to extreme climatic events remains limited, posing a major source of uncertainty in predicting the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Using wheat yield data and daily observations from 410 meteorological stations in different regions across 22 provinces in China from 1980 to 2020, we developed region-specific panel regression models to quantify the effects of climatic extremes on wheat production. Results show that extreme growing-degree days (EDDs) have been among the most critical contributors to wheat yield losses over the past four decades, with reductions of 0.52%, 1.46%, 2.35%, and 2.58% in the southern winter (SW), northern winter (NW), winter-spring (WS), and spring wheat (SP) regions, respectively. These losses exhibited clear spatial and varietal patterns, with greater impacts in northern regions and for spring wheat, reflecting lower resilience to heat extremes. When combined, changes in EDDs, freezing degree-days (FDDs), and growing-degree-days (GDDs) contributed to wheat yield reductions of 1.52%, 2.42%, 2.45%, and 3.28% in SW, NW, WS, and SP wheat regions, respectively. Although increased precipitation led to yield gains of 0.84% and 1.65% in SP and WS regions, respectively, its effect was insufficient to offset the damage caused by temperature extremes. Notably, in NW, WS, and SP zones, even with higher precipitation, combined climatic stresses (include EDDs, FDDs, GDDs and precipitation) led to further yield reductions of 2.84%, 2.63%, and 3.56%. These findings indicate that modest increases in rainfall cannot compensate for the adverse effects of extreme temperature events, and may even exacerbate yield losses under certain conditions. Our results underscore the urgent need to develop climate-resilient wheat varieties and to adopt regionally optimized agronomic strategies, including heat-targeted breeding and adaptive water management, to safeguard food production under intensifying climate extremes.