Climate change is having many effects in the agricultural sector, which are being studied worldwide. Undoubtedly, warmer winters and earlier springs produce changes in frost regimes and severity that will affect the sustainability of agricultural production in the area. The Mediterranean region and the Iberian Peninsula (IP) are among the areas where the greatest impact of climate change is expected. Daily data from 68 weather stations of the IP belonging to the European Climate Assessment and Dataset (1975–2018) were used to conduct a spatiotemporal study of the frost regime. The variables calculated include the probability of three frost types according to their severity, frost day, mean absolute minimum yearly temperature, first frost day, last frost day, and frost-free period. These variables were integrated into a geographic information system, which allowed the graphical visualization of their patterns using of geostatistical interpolation techniques (kriging). Changes in frost variables were investigated using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator. A general reduction in the number of frosts per year is observed (values between −0.04- and −0.8-day frosts per year), as well as an increase in the mean absolute minimum temperature (values between 0.04 and 0.10 °C per year), with very high significant trends throughout the territory. The reduction in the number of frosts is more pronounced at a higher elevation. Frost dates vary greatly due to the orographic characteristics of the IP. The generalized trend is of a significant delay of the autumn frosts (values between 0.4 and 1.06 days/year), as well as early spring frosts (between −0.429 and −1.29 days/year), and as a consequence a longer frost-free period, all changes were much stronger than those found in other regions of the world. These effects of climate change must be mitigated by modifying species, varieties, and cultivation techniques to guarantee sustainable agriculture.
The knowledge of the chilling requirements for breaking rest and flowering of fruit trees is necessary to properly select cultivars and to avoid losses due to an inappropriate cultivar selection in a particular geographical location. With the aim of providing an analysis using three models (Chilling Hours, Utah Model, and Positive Utah Model) to estimate the accumulation of winter chilling, quantifying its spatial variability and representing the spatial pattern throughout mainland Spain, temperature data from 72 meteorological stations, considering the 1975–2015 period, were utilized. The statistical properties of values corresponding to each winter chilling model were assessed and, later, they were mapped by means of an integrated geographic information system (GIS) and a multivariate geostatistics (regression-kriging) and algebra map approach. The results show that measures obtained with the three chilling models were highly related, which were used to visualize the spatial variability of the accumulated winter chilling considering each model. Moreover, the fact that elevation and latitude are related to the chilling hours enables their use as auxiliary variables to better estimate at unsampled locations and generate more accurate maps. Knowledge of the spatial patterns of chill accumulation in different areas of mainland Spain is of great importance when appropriate fruit trees and cultivars have to be selected. Moreover, if a high probability of satisfying the chilling requirements in any area is considered, quantile maps can be used instead of maps based on mean values. Finally, the potential spatial distributions of three sweet cherry cultivars were delineated using the obtained maps.
About Me
Profesora en la Escuela de Ingenierías Agrarias de la Universidad de Extremadura
Profesora en la Escuela de Ingenierías Agrarias de la Universidad de Extremadura