Evaluation of Cropland System Resilience to Climate Change at Municipal Scale Through Robustness, Adaptability, and Transformability: A Case Study of Hubei Province, China

Abstract

A cropland system is one of the most sensitive socio-ecological systems to climate change, such as drought and flood. Facing frequent extreme weather events worldwide, how to improve cropland system resilience to climate change (CSRCC) and thus ensure food production has been concerned. Although a small number of studies have attempted to evaluate CSRCC through single or multiple indicators, few studies have considered the perspective of the three basic capacities of resilience (i.e., robustness, adaptability, and transformability), which could ignore the dynamic characteristics of cropland system resilience against shocks within a certain period. Therefore, this study first constructs an evaluation index system from the three capacities of system resilience. Then, taking Hubei province, China, as a case and comprehensively using the methods of Delphi, AHP, and TOPSIS to assess the spatio-temporal characteristics of CSRCC at the municipal scale from 2011 to 2018. On this basis, the regional disparities of CSRCC are analyzed by using the Theil coefficient. The results show that the CSRCC of Hubei province fluctuates on a downward trend, with the lowest in 2017 and the highest in 2013. Most municipalities have witnessed a pattern of fluctuated decline, except for a few ones in the plains, such as Wuhan and Jingmen. Generally, municipalities in the plains have greater scores, while some municipalities in the southern and eastern hilly regions show higher adaptability and transformability. In addition, adaptability contributes the least to the CSRCC at the municipal scale. At last, indicator selection against different research objects, influencing mechanism of CSRCC, and policy implications are discussed. This study is expected to provide a reference for the practice in sustainable management and utilization of cropland systems.