Predicting Potential Epidemics of Rice Leaf Blast Disease Using Climate Scenarios from the Best Global Climate Model Selected for Individual Agro-Climatic Zones in Korea

국내 농업기후지대 별 최적기후모형 선정을 통한 미래 벼 도열병 발생 위험도 예측

Climate change will affect not only the crop productivity but also the pattern of rice disease epidemics in Korea. Impact assessments for the climate change are conducted using various climate change scenarios from many global climate models (GCM), such as a scenario from a best GCM or scenarios from multiple GCMs, or a combination of both. Here, we evaluated the feasibility of using a climate change scenario from the best GCM for the impact assessment on the potential epidemics of a rice leaf blast disease in Korea, in comparison to a multi?model ensemble (MME) scenario from multiple GCMs. For this, this study involves analyses of disease simulation using an epidemiological model, EPIRICE?LB, which was validated for Korean rice paddy fields. We then assessed likely changes in disease epidemics using the best GCM selected for individual agro?climatic zones and MME scenarios constructed by running 11 GCMs. As a result, the simulated incidence of leaf blast epidemics gradually decreased over the future periods both from the best GCM and MME. The results from this study emphasized that the best GCM selection approach resulted in comparable performance to the MME approach for the climate change impact assessment on rice leaf blast epidemic in Korea.