Impact of climate change on yields of major agricultural crops in Tripura

The impact of climate change is studied in many aspects in different locations in the country and it is concluded that there is high impact on agriculture compared to any other sector in the country. In the present study, long time (1996–2015) weather variables have been analyzed to trend changes using non-parametric Mann Kendall test in Tripura (23°9408′N latitude, 91°9882′E longitude), located in the North-Eastern Hill Regions of India, representing agro-climatic zone of Mild Tropical Plain Zone. Significant rise in temperature, confounding rainfall amount, distribution and frequency variability, decline in atmospheric evaporative demand via complementary relationship with relative humidity provides sufficient indication that like other parts of India and the Tripura located at NE Region is also experiencing the regional impact of climate change, though the magnitude of change may not be the same. The Evaporation and Relative humidity effects have been found significant almost all the crops, indicating that inclusion of spatial fixed effects in climate model is important for controlling time-invariant location specific characteristics. The annual rainfall was found to be significant effect to rice productivity and temperature was significant to the crop line maize and groundnut.