Climate Change in Bulgaria—Impacts and Adaptation in Agriculture
摘要
The climate change—agriculture nexus involves complex interactions between climatic, ecological, economic, political, social, and technological processes. In recent years, many regions of the world have experienced more frequent and severe extreme weather events such as cold and heat waves, floods, droughts, forest fires, and storms. The present study gives the answers to the following questions: Is there a change in the type and frequency of occurrence of extreme temperature and precipitation months during the period 1961–2020? What measures are farmers in Bulgaria taking to adapt their farms to climate change? The following indicators for climate change and extreme climate events were analyzed: number of extreme cold and extreme warm months (based on 10th and 90th percentiles of the distribution of monthly temperature); number of extreme dry and wet months (based on 10th and 90th percentiles); Standardized precipitation index (SPI-3). Climate impact on agriculture was evaluated by a survey among Bulgarian farmers (structured questionnaire) and correlation analysis between SPI-3 as a drought indicator and average crop yields that depend on moisture availability, for example, maize and sunflower as well as the main cereal crop—wheat. The results show that Bulgarian agriculture is becoming more and more vulnerable to droughts and climate change. Farms in Bulgaria take adaptation actions such as changing sowing dates and growing drought-tolerant varieties, but this is not always a solution to climate change problems, as it is not possible to predict the sequence of dry and wet years.