Adaptation Investigations to Respond to Climate Change Projections in Gansu Province, Northern China

General Circulation Models (GCMs) are applied to Gansu Province, northwest China, to assess temporal and spatial trends of precipitation and temperature, and the trends compared to historical trends. The simulations for the three regions of the Province indicate that temperatures will increase by 3, 3.4 and 3.2 °C for the East, Mid and West regions, while precipitation will be reduced by 50, 50 and 1 mm, respectively in the future. For SRES scenarios of higher population growth, the changes will be larger, followed by the scenarios of fast economic and technologic growth. Based on climate simulations, adaptations of cropping patterns will be needed in the West region since large amounts of irrigation for current cropping patterns will increase the risk of salinization and desertification unless adopted in the planning. Although the current situation for the West region of the Province is most severe, the risk of conditions being drier is shown to be higher for the Mid region. The Mid region has been highly dependent on natural precipitation; highly variable irrigation water quantities will be needed in the future since precipitation in this region varies significantly from year to year.