Optimising regional land use to enhance water productivity under climate uncertainty: the role of perennial crops

The unique production life cycles of perennial crops make them vulnerable to predicted future climate changes. This paper describes how a new framework specific to perennial crops was developed and integrated into an existing spatio-temporal agricultural land sequencer (STALS) to generate real-world land use insights for a case study region, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Australia. Model outputs illuminated the role of perennials in a water-constrained future and highlighted the benefit of the operational tactic of deficit irrigation in maintaining the feasibility of perennial crops in the mid-to-long-range planning horizon. Furthermore, diversity of life cycle in land use was shown to maintain economically viable agriculture in the study region. The future of perennial crops as a proportion of land use area in a climate-smart landscape may need to be reevaluated.