Effects of climate change on spring wheat phenophase and water requirement in Heihe River basin, China

Climate change has significantly altered the temperature rhythm which is a key factor for the growth and phenophase of the crop. And temperature change further affects crop water requirement and irrigation system. In the north-west of China, one of the most important crop production bases is Heihe River basin where the observed phenological data is scarce. This study thus first adopted accumulated temperature threshold (ATT) method to define the phenological stages of the crop, and analysed the effect of climate change on phenological stages and water requirement of the crop during growing season. The results indicated the ATT was available for the determination of spring wheat phenological stages. The start dates of all phenological stages became earlier and the growing season length (days) was reduced by 7 days under climate change. During the growing season, water requirement without consideration of phenophase change has been increased by 26.1 mm, while that with consideration of phenophase change was featured in the decrease of water requirement by 50 mm. When temperature increased by 1°C on average, the changes were featured in the 2 days early start date of growing season, 2 days decrease of growing season length, and the 1.4 mm increase of water requirement, respectively.