Adaptation to temperature extremes in Chinese agriculture, 1981 to 2010

Causal evidence for adaptation effects of specific agricultural instruments is scant but important for identifying potentially useful adaptive measures for climate change in the future. To address this gap, we leverage quasi-experimental variations in irrigation induced by a natural experiment for irrigation expansion started in 1996 and quantify the contribution of irrigation access to the overall adaptation effect. There are three primary findings. First, using a period-specific panel fixed effect model, the analysis shows a significant decline in the temperature-related yield loss in the post-1996 period compared to before, indicating a substantial overall adaptation effect. Second, estimation of marginal adaptation effects of inputs points to irrigation as the central input for adaptation among the inputs observed in the data. Third, using a difference-in-differences approach united with the panel methodology for identifying temperature effects, we show that the presence of the irrigation expansion experiment significantly mitigated the high temperature impacts on crop yields, with increased irrigation through the natural experiment accounting for about 40% of the overall adaptation effect.