Climate change and plantations in the humid tropics / G S L H V Prasada Rao; C S Gopakumar

Preface Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Climate Change in India Chapter 3. Climate Variability and Food Security Chapter 4. Climate Change Over Kerala Chapter 5. Climate Change and Rice Chapter 6. Weather, Climate and Plantation Crops Chapter 7. Climate Change and Coconut Chapter 8. Climate Change and Cashew Productivity Chapter 9. Climate Variability and Cocoa Production in Kerala Chapter 10 Climate Change and Cardamom Chapter 11. Climate Variability and Rubber Chapter 12. Climate Change and Black Pepper and Coffee Chapter 13. Climate Variability and Tea Production Chapter 14. Climate Change and Agriculture Scenario: Kerala Perspective Chapter 15. Climate Change and Quality Aspects of Plantation Crops Chapter 16. Climate Risk Management in Plantation Crops

Weather and climate play an important role in plantation crops’ production. While climate determines the adaptability of a particular crop in a region, weather determines the yield attributes of the crop. The global warming and climate change impacts on plantation crops are evident in the form of extreme weather events like floods, droughts, cold and heat waves and strong cyclonic winds, the frequency of which is likely to be more and more in the ensuing decades as noticed year after year around the globe in 1998, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2015. It is now a topic of concern and the plantations’ economy is in a threat in the ensuing decades due to climate variability. Decline in monsoon rainfall with number of rainy days, increasing ambient air temperatures (both day maximum and night minimum), decline in groundwater table, decline in wetland area and surface water resources, increasing number of forest fires and decline in forest area, increasing events of landslides during both the monsoon seasons, indiscriminate sand mining from river beds and unscientific land filling are the important climate change related issues in the Humid Tropics.