Crop response pattern to several drought timescales and its possible determinants: A global-scale analysis during the last decades

Crop response characteristics to different timescales of precipitation deficit may represent crop system resilience to drought characteristics. In this study, we assess the crop yield response of major crops to meteorological drought estimated by a standardized precipitation index with multiple timescales (1–12 months) during 1981–2016 all over the globe. We estimate that about one- to two-thirds of global harvested areas of maize, rice, soybean, and wheat, were significantly affected by various drought timescales. Soybean and wheat might respond to more prolonged droughts, while rice and maize responded to short-medium drought time scales. Using multiple machine learning models, we reveal that set of determinants could explain most variations of crop response to drought timescale with average accuracies between 45.7% and 56.0% (across models and crop types). Moreover, this study suggests that crops in warmer and higher water availability (precipitation minus potential evapotranspiration) might respond significantly to more short-term drought. The other factors (i.e., socioeconomic, fertilizer, soil, topography, production, irrigation) shows a complex and weaker effect on defining crop vulnerability to the various drought characteristics. This study attempts to fill the gaps in understanding global crop resistance to different drought characteristics. The future challenge in understanding the multifaceted effect of physical and socioeconomic factors on global crop vulnerability to drought may remain and should be addressed in further studies.