Study of the climate change scenarios effect on locating of autumn sowing of sugar beet (Case Study: South Khorasan Province)

Considering the effect of climate change on climatic parameters such as temperature and rainfall as well as interaction of these parameters on plant physiology characteristics especially growing degree days (GDD) and capability of biomass production index (CBPI), the suitable location for crop cultivation can be determined by examining these indices. This study was performed to evaluate the effects of climate change scenarios B1 and A2 on determination of the appropriate location for autumn-sown sugar beet in South Khorasan province via the climatic parameters prediction using LARS-WG software under general circulation model HadCM3 and AHP weighting method based on climate parameters, plant physiology, hydrogeology, and topography, in ARC GIS 9.3 software during cultivation period of 2016-2017. Results showed that in general in both scenarios the majority of areas of the province are inappropriate for autumn-sown sugar beet cultivation so that based on the A2 and B1 scenarios, 72.81and 71.13% of the total area of the province are not suitable for cultivation, respectively and only 24.41, 2.69 and 0.08% of the province area based on the A2 scenario and also 25.36, 3.45 and 0.05% based on B1 the scenario were determined as medium, suitable, and very suitable in terms of cultivation. Also results of the final map showed that A2 and B1 scenarios in the near future (2011-2030), approximately have the same accuracy for locating the suitable area for sugar beet cultivation.