Yields and water footprints of sunflower and winter wheat under Different Climate Projections

Water consumption in agriculture has a significant impact on water resources. On the other hand, agricultural production is also important in terms of food sustainability. In this study, the yield and water footprint (WF) of sunflower and winter wheat in the Northwestern (Thrace) part of Turkey were modeled. In addition, the meteorological data of the optimistic (RCP 4.5) and pessimistic (RCP 8.5) scenarios of three climate change models (EC-EARTH, HadGEM2-ES, and IPSL-CM5A-MR) until 2099 were obtained from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (hereafter CORDEX). According to projection data, it was predicted that the annual mean air temperature will increase between 1.7 and 3.3 °C. The average change in the precipitation will decrease between 10 and 33% during the sunflower growing seasons. It was calculated that it will increase from 9 to 25% in the winter wheat growing seasons. We calibrated grain yield using Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT). Performance indicators like Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) were calculated as 5.3% and 4.7% for sunflower; 7.9% and 6.3% for winter wheat, respectively. The yields and WFs of the crops were simulated according to the climate projections with the calibrated DSSAT. The yield and WF simulation results were evaluated for three successive periods (P1: 2020–2040; P2: 2041–2070; P3: 2071–2099). It was determined that the sunflower yield will tend to decrease in the future periods in all locations. On the other hand, it was estimated that winter wheat yield might increase by 25% in the Tekirdağ city while it would decrease by 29% in the Edirne and Kırklareli cities.