Friday, March 29, 2024

Risks to agriculture from climate change

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The first National Climate Change Risk Assessment has ranked the spread of invasive species as a major consequence and the economic costs of extreme events even higher.
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These are the two areas of public life to be affected by climate change that impact the primary sector the most.

The report ascribes high urgency to the costs associated with lost productivity, disaster relief expenditure and unfunded contingent liabilities due to extreme events.

For the risk to indigenous ecosystems and species from invasive species establishing here, the report ranks the urgency somewhat lower.

The Ministry for the Environment used trends and projections from business as usual developed by NIWA when considering the national risk assessment.

These included a further one degree Celsius warming in temperatures by 2040, sea level rise of 200mm over the same period, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, a reduction in snow and frost days, and more frequent droughts and wildfires.

Warmer temperatures are likely to spread invasive species southward and to higher elevations and foreign species already here but not considered problematic could gain advantages.

“For example, rodents may extend their altitudinal ranges, and freshwater pest fish in warmer northern lakes and rivers are more likely to spread southwards,” the report said.

Human transport will bring in plants and insects while others will spread naturally on winds or currents.

“More frequent events, such as droughts or heatwaves, may enable invasive species to expand their range, when formerly dominant indigenous species are lost through stress-induced mortality,” the report said.

The report also examined the risks to land-based primary sector productivity and output due to changing precipitation and water availability, temperature, seasonality, climate extremes and the distribution of invasive species.

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