Browsing by Author "Rotich, Stella Chebet"

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    Assessment of impacts of climate change on crop water requirements in Kikafu sub catchment
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2015) Rotich, Stella Chebet
    The effects of climate change on crop water requirements in Kikafu sub catchment is assessed using CROPWAT which is a crop simulation model. Climate scenarios were developed from A2 emission scenario using three GCMs. However, since the GCMs are of coarse spatial resolution, their outputs were downscaled using LARS-WG model whose downscaling is site specific. The crop considered is maize. The study involved the determination of crop water requirements under both the baseline period and the future climate scenarios. The baseline climatic data of 1971-2000 was used in the study. The projection showed that temperature will increase by 1.16oC in 2020s and 2.7oC in 2050s. The months of May, June and July are expected to have higher temperatures. Precipitation projection showed variability with the months of February, March and April showing increases of 35% in 2020s and 56% in 2050s while decreases of 19% and 25% will be experienced in the months of June, July and August respectively. The crop water requirements are projected to increase in by 3.8% in 2020s and 7.1% in 2050s in Moshi and 19.9% and 22.4% in Lyamungu respectively. More impact is projected to be during the last days of the development stage and the entire mid- season where the temperature will be high and precipitation is low. With the increasing crop water requirements, better adaptation measures can be by increasing in crop diversification, restoration of soil organic matter and changing on cropping systems.