Impact of climate change on agricultural production in the North China Plain and adaption strategies

Over the past century, global warming has posed significant challenges to the North China Plain (NCP), a core region for grain production, where resource-induced water scarcity now coincides with complex meteorological disasters. In recent years, the NCP has exhibited new climatic characteristics, notably the transition from a “warm-dry” to a “warm-wet” pattern accompanied by asymmetric warming, leading to an increased frequency of extreme events such as droughts, abrupt dry-flood alternations, and temperature extremes. These shifts pose a grave threat to regional grain stability. Currently, critical gaps remain in the understanding of the underlying disaster mechanisms, as well as in predictive early warning capabilities and emergency response capabilities. To address these challenges, this study proposes constructing an integrated “space-air-ground” high-precision monitoring network coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) and crop models to enhance forecasting and decision-making. It also emphasizes alleviating water constraints through the construction of high-standard farmland and the adoption of high-efficiency water-saving technologies, advancing research into stress-tolerant crop varieties and adaptive cultivation techniques, and improving agricultural insurance systems and large-scale farm management frameworks.