Working Paper No. 26 of 2017 on a Synthesis of the Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Production Systems in the East African Community Region

Abstract

Climate change has large influences on agriculture and thus food security, which remains heavily dependent on rainfall over Eastern Africa Community (EAC). This study sought to explore the spatial effects of climate change on agricultural production in five countries in EAC, namely Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. The climate change and crop modelling data used included observed climate, climate model output, soil profile, key informant database and maize cultivar specific parameters. This study used dynamical downscaling techniques whereby downscaled climate change models take data from GCMs and interpret them in relation to local climate dynamics. The period considered included both historical/past (1971 to 2000) and future (2016 to 2045 as mid-century and 2071 to 2100 as end century). The future projections used Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenario 4.5wm2 and 8.5wm2 . Error analysis techniques included Normalized root mean square error (NRMSE), Modified Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (mNSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) techniques. The study selected short, medium and long term maturity cultivars to evaluate the impacts of climate change in different agricultural zones.