The future of date palm cultivation in the arid and extra-arid regions of southeastern Iran based on climate change scenarios

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is an important commercial crop in many countries, including Iran. Understanding the possible future climate conditions will enable environmental managers to prepare appropriate strategies to manage the changes. In the current study, climatic conditions and water requirement of date palm in arid regions of southeastern Iran have been simulated under possible future climatic conditions. For this purpose, the stochastic weather generator model (LARS-WG) has been used to generate local-scale climate scenarios based on global climate models (GCM) to assess the effects of future climate change. Forecasts have been made for the near future period (2040-2021) and the distant future (2080-2061) based on observational data of Saravan and Iranshahr weather stations in the base period of 1987-2010. The water requirement of date palm has also been determined through CROPWAT 8.0 computer program for the intended courses based on simulated climatic data. The results showed that a relative decrease in climatic suitability for date palm cultivation in the study district by 2100. This means that the predicted increase in precipitation will be not able to compensate for the evapotranspiration deficit due to the predicted increase in temperature, and these conditions will increase the water requirement of the crop. But on the other hand, changes in rainfall regime (time of receipt) and extreme climate events will have negative effects on date palm cultivation in southeastern Iran. The results of this research can play a significant role in adopting forward-looking policies to address the impacts and challenges of climate change on the agriculture section of Iran.