Climate Change Impact on Bioclimatic Deficiency, Using MicroLEIS DSS in Ahar Soils, Iran

Regional impact studies of the future climate change effects are necessary because projected changes in meteorological variables differ from one region to another, and different climate systems can react in varied ways to the same changes. In this study, the effects of climate change on bioclimatic deficiency were compared in two cultivation methods (irrigated and rainfed) in a semi-arid region, Ahar (East Azarbaijan, IRAN). The agricultural land uses selected for evaluation were wheat (Triticum aestivum), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), potato (Solanum tuberosum), and maize (Zea mays). In this way, Terraza model included in the land evaluation decision support system, called MicroLEIS DSS, was used. Terraza gives a quantitative prediction of a site bioclimatic deficiency. Soil morphological and analytical data were obtained from 44 sampling points based on a grid survey. Agro-climatic data, referred to temperature and precipitation, were collected from weather stations located in Ahar region, which benefits from more than 20 consecutive years of weather data. A future scenario of climate change was calculated according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on regions of Asia under scenario A1FI (highest future emission) fo