Impacts of Climate Change on Regional Economies project

About the project

The project modelled the impacts of different climate scenarios out to 2050/2100 on land-based primary industries. This includes how climate change could impact a select range of horticultural/arable crops, as well as forestry species and their management regimes, at a fine-grained spatial level.

The project also modelled how New Zealand’s economy could react to three theoretical future scenarios relevant to land-based primary industries and influenced by climate change. These scenarios considered potential changes in productivity growth, changing export demand, and biophysical impacts of climate change.

Key findings

The project was undertaken by Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research (MWLR), Plant & Food Research, Scion, and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. Key findings and outcomes from the work included:

• For the horticulture/arable crops considered, northern (warmer) regions may disproportionality experience more yield stagnation or decline under climate change, while southern (cooler) regions could potentially experience the highest yield gains.
• Productivity increased under all warming scenarios for the forestry species considered (Radiata, Fastigata, and Redwood), with Radiata exhibiting the strongest productivity and profitability performance.
• Calibrating MWLR’s New Zealand Forest and Agriculture Regional model with new information from the horticulture, arable, and forestry project modelling – where it can now undertake broader analysis on agricultural impacts under different climate change scenarios.
• GDP impacts from the 3 possible future scenarios considered amounted to a few percentage point changes or less at the national level, but with significant variability across different regions and industries.

These results should be considered alongside a range of wider factors influencing land use and regional economic activity not considered by this research, such as:

• pest and disease incursions
• more frequent and intensive extreme weather events, and
• future global demand and supply of land-based primary industry goods.

Project reports

Contacts

For queries on data access or detailed mapping of results for the forestry report, contact David Pont david.pont@scionresearch.com
 
For queries on data access or detailed mapping of results for the horticulture / arable report, contact Sarah Eady sarah.eady@plantandfood.co.nz and Edith Khaembah edith.khaembah@plantandfood.co.nz

For queries on the Economic analysis of scenarios for 2050 report, contact Bill Kaye-Blake bill.kaye-blake@nzier.org.nz

To discuss any modelling needs using MWLR’s New Zealand Forest and Agriculture Regional model contact Suzie Greenhalgh greenhalghs@landcareresearch.co.nz