Arid Zone Research ›› 2025, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (10): 1925-1938.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2025.10.15

• Agricultural Ecology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Cotton production assessment in the Tarim River Basin based on CMIP6 models

YUE Shengru1,2(), HU Xuefei1, HOU Xiaohua1(), MENG Fujun1   

  1. 1. College of Hydraulic and Architectural Engineering, Tarim University, Alaer 843300, Xinjiang, China
    2. School of Geography and Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
  • Received:2025-04-07 Revised:2025-08-04 Online:2025-10-15 Published:2025-10-22
  • Contact: HOU Xiaohua E-mail:nmgndysr@163.com;CHTarim@126.com

Abstract:

Climate change significantly affects cotton production. This study assessed the effectiveness of the DSSAT-CROPGRO-Cotton model in simulating cotton production in the Tarim River Basin. Using climate change datasets generated by CMIP6 climate models under the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, the study analyzed the spatiotemporal variations and centroid shift patterns of climate characteristics, cotton yield, irrigation water volume, and water productivity from 2021 to 2100. The results indicate that during the cotton-growing season, temperature in the Tarim River Basin is projected to rise by up to 4.9 ℃, whereas precipitation is expected to decrease by an average of 3.4-4.4 mm, and solar radiation is likely to decline by 0.6-0.7 MJ∙m-2 from 2021 to 2100. The DSSAT-CROPGRO-Cotton+GIS coupled model reliably simulated cotton yield and irrigation water volume in the Tarim River Basin. Under future scenarios, cotton yield is projected to increase by 12.42%-23.96% relative to historical levels, with irrigation water volume rising by 1.76%-21.82% and water productivity by 0.95%-20.61%. The changes in cotton yield, irrigation water volume, and water productivity under the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios exhibit distinct patterns. In the SSP2-4.5 scenario, cotton yield is expected to follow an “increase-stagnation” pattern, whereas irrigation water volume is anticipated to “continuously increase,” and water productivity is likely to follow an “increase-decrease” pattern. In contrast, under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, cotton yield is projected to follow an “increase-stagnation-decrease” pattern, with irrigation water volume still “continuously increasing,” whereas water productivity is expected to follow an “increase-stagnation-sharp decrease” pattern. Centroid analysis shows that under the SSP2-4.5 scenario, the centroid of cotton yield is expected to shift northeastward, whereas under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, it exhibits a “northeast-southwest” oscillation. The centroid of irrigation water volume is projected to shift northeastward, whereas that of water productivity is likely to shift southwestward in future scenarios.

Key words: climate change, cotton production, CMIP6, DSSAT-CROPGRO-Cotton+GIS, Tarim River Basin