Technical Note: Possible effects of climate change on suitable rain-fed wheat cultivation regions in Kurdistan province

This study was aimed to investigate the possible effects of climate change on rain-fed wheat cultivation regions in Kurdistan province, Iran, using HadCM3 model outputs under three climate change scenarios (B1, A1B and A2) during 2011-2030 period. The statistical weather generator model, LARS-WG was used to downscale climate variables. The agroclimatic zoning of suitable regions was performed utilizing ArcGIS 9.3 program. In the baseline period (1991-2010), suitable regions for rain-fed wheat cultivation were mainly located in west and northwestern regions of Kurdistan Province namely, Baneh, Marivan and Saqez stations  which cover about 28.6 % of the total province area. Results of agroclimatic zoning during the future period showed that suitable regions area will increase by 34.4 % (63 % of the total area) under B1, A1B and A2 scenarios. No significant difference was observed between three climate change scenarios.