Extreme weather events threaten food security, yet global assessments of impacts caused by crop waterlogging are rare. Here we first develop a paradigm that distils common stress patterns across environments, genotypes and climate horizons. Second, we embed improved process-based understanding into a farming systems model to discern changes in global crop waterlogging under future climates. Third, we develop avenues for adapting cropping systems to waterlogging contextualised by environment. We find that yield penalties caused by waterlogging increase from 3–11% historically to 10–20% by 2080, with penalties reflecting a trade-off between the duration of waterlogging and the timing of waterlogging relative to crop stage. We document greater potential for waterlogging-tolerant genotypes in environments with longer temperate growing seasons (e.g., UK, France, Russia, China), compared with environments with higher annualised ratios of evapotranspiration to precipitation (e.g., Australia). Under future climates, altering sowing time and adoption of waterlogging-tolerant genotypes reduces yield penalties by 18%, while earlier sowing of winter genotypes alleviates waterlogging by 8%. We highlight the serendipitous outcome wherein waterlogging stress patterns under present conditions are likely to be similar to those in the future, suggesting that adaptations for future climates could be designed using stress patterns realised today.

Accurate long-term temperature and precipitation estimates at high spatial and temporal resolutions are vital for a wide variety of climatological studies. We have produced a new, publicly available, daily, gridded maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation dataset for China with a high spatial resolution of 1 km that covers a long-term period (1961 to 2019). It has been named the HRLT, and the dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.941329 (Qin and Zhang, 2022). In this study, the daily gridded data were interpolated using comprehensive statistical analyses, which included machine learning methods, the generalized additive model, and thin plate splines. It was based on the 0.5^∘ × 0.5^∘ gridded dataset from the China Meteorological Administration, together with covariates for elevation, aspect, slope, topographic wetness index, latitude, and longitude. The accuracy of the HRLT daily dataset was assessed using observation data from meteorological stations across China. The maximum and minimum temperature estimates were more accurate than the precipitation estimates. For maximum temperature, the mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), Pearson's correlation coefficient (Cor), coefficient of determination after adjustment (R²), and Nash–Sutcliffe modeling efficiency (NSE) were 1.07 ^∘C, 1.62 ^∘C, 0.99, 0.98, and 0.98, respectively. For minimum temperature, the MAE, RMSE, Cor, R², and NSE were 1.08 ^∘C, 1.53 ^∘C, 0.99, 0.99, and 0.99, respectively. For precipitation, the MAE, RMSE, Cor, R², and NSE were 1.30 mm, 4.78 mm, 0.84, 0.71, and 0.70, respectively. The accuracy of the HRLT was compared to those of three other existing datasets, and its accuracy was either greater than the others, especially for precipitation, or comparable in accuracy, but with higher spatial resolution or over a longer time period. In summary, the HRLT dataset, which has a high spatial resolution, covers a longer period of time and has reliable accuracy.

This paper describes the progress of dryland farming development by comparing the ridge‐furrow plastic film mulching (RFM) system with conventional cultivation in the Chinese Loess Plateau, where the climate is cool and semi‐arid or sub‐humid prone to drought, and dryland farming dominates. The barren soil dominated by eolian sedimentary loess is loose and erosive. For thousands of years, increasing human population pressure and high‐intensity disordered land use have led to serious ecosystem degradation. Since the 1950s, large scale and long‐term construction of terraced fields have effectively reduced the soil erosion potential, and such fields have become more and more convenient for mechanized large‐area production. Since the beginning of the 21^st century, the crop cultivation system based on the RFM has been widely promoted. Compared with previous cropping systems, the crop productivity in the FRM system is double or multiple times greater. Soil moisture has become favorable. Soil organic carbon content has been controlled or increased. Most importantly, the FRM system has promoted the coordinated development of grain, forage, and livestock, and favorable market results. It has vigorously promoted the fight against poverty and the realization of the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in dryland areas. Therefore, ridge‐furrow mulching is the key basis for the sustainable development of the dryland farming system on the Loess Plateau. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved