Projected Crop Coefficients Under Climate Change in Egypt

Abstract

The objective of this chapter was to quantify how climate change will affect the value of Kc for several important crops in Egypt. One way to do so is to develop a procedure to accurately estimate Kc values for 14 field crops, 7 fruit crops and 13 vegetable crops in the five agro-climatic zones of Egypt in 2030. Monthly values of evapotranspiration (ETo) in 2016 were calculated using Penman-Monteith equation (P-M) and Hargreaves-Samani equation (H-S). Then, the monthly ETo(H-S) values were regressed on monthly ETo(P-M) values, and prediction equations were developed for each agro-climatic zone of Egypt. These equations were used to project ETo values under climate change in 2030 using RCP6.0 climate change scenario resulted from MIROC5 climate change model. These values of ETo were used to run BISm model and to calculate Kc values for the studied crops, the date of each Kc growth stage and its water consumptive use in 2030. Comparison between Kc values in 2016 and 2030 for field and vegetable crops revealed that the values of Kcini were higher in 2016, compared to its counterpart values in 2030. The values of Kcmid and Kcend were similar or lower in 2016, compared to its counterpart values in 2030. Whereas, there was no change in the values of Kc for fruit crops between 2016 and 2030.