Identification of thresholds and key drivers on water use efficiency in different maize ecoregions in Yellow River Basin of China

Identifying the constrains on water use efficiency (WUE) of crops along a wet-to-dry gradient is important due to irrigation water scarcity, as well as the increasing drought risk under climate change in China. This study coupled five high-resolution climate models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) with the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT)-CERES-Maize model to quantify drought risk and the drivers affecting WUE in five major maize ecoregions of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) under three future scenarios (SSP126, SSP370, and SSP585) for both the historical baseline (1985–2014) and three future periods: 2021–2040 (2030s), 2041–2070 (2050s), and 2071–2100 (2080s). And a bias correction method was implemented for the crop model to analyze optimal WUE thresholds for maize across varying dry-wet gradients. The results indicated that future drought risk will likely persist in the YRB under all scenarios, but with regional differences in drought severity and frequency. The southwestern region (V) experienced the highest frequency of drought (62.50%-SSP126), while the northwestern region (III) exhibited the lowest frequency (33.00%-SSP585) in 2030s, and 83.30% of areas in the southwestern (V) showed significant wetting in the 2080s under SSP126. The bias-corrected CERES-Maize model effectively simulated crop yield and evapotranspiration (ET), resulting in an average reduction of 4.00% and 9.73% in normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) respectively. Distinct WUE thresholds ranging from 1.96 to 8.41 kg ha⁻¹ mm⁻¹ were observed across various scenarios-periods in the maize regions, mostly under slight and moderate dry/wet conditions. Notably, all SSP585 scenarios demonstrated a decrease in WUE thresholds compared to the baseline. Across all scenarios and periods, WUE was mainly driven by yield in the eastern regions (I and II) but by ET in the western regions (III, IV, and V). These findings suggest that regions experiencing varying degrees of drought severity should undergo differentiated management and optimization of agricultural practices to improve WUE under future climate scenarios.