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Predicting Cotton Yield under Future Climate Scenarios Using Machine Learning Techniques
The increasing menace of climate change constitutes a profound obstacle for contemporary farming, carrying grave implications for worldwide food availability. The effect of altering climatic parameters on agricultural output, particularly for essential staple commodities, fuels worry regarding prospective harvests. This investigation explores the likely repercussions of climate change on cotton cultivation by merging archival climate records, Global Climate Model (GCMs, CMIP3) forecasts, and cotton production statistics. A broad spectrum of machine learning (ML) methodologies is applied, including multiple regression, k-nearest neighbors (KNN), boosted tree techniques, and several variants of artificial neural networks (ANNs), to delve into the intricate linkage between climatic drivers and cotton productivity. The models are built and verified using climatic and crop output data obtained from three districts within Punjab, Pakistan, across the timeframe 1991 to 2020. To anticipate future production outcomes, climatic projections from General Circulation Models (GCMs) are refined via downscaling under the SRA1B, A2, and B1 emission trajectories, facilitating outlooks extending to 2050. The outcomes reveal that precipitation exerts a trivial influence on cotton output (R = 0.0002), while peak temperature (R = -0.183) stands out as the foremost climatic determinant shaping yield, trailed by lowest temperature (R = 0.248). Of the tested architectures, the generalized feedforward (GFF) network delivered the optimal results (R = 0.960, MSE = 0.110, NMSE = 0.187, MAE = 0.269), exceeding the performance of the probabilistic neural network (PNN), KNN, multilayer perceptron (MLP), and boosted trees. By comparison, linear regression (LR) and multiple regression formulations registered weaker predictive power. The trustworthiness of GFF and KNN for generating yield projections (R² = 0.892, 0.861) endorses their suitability for reliable forecasting. The study calculates a 4.5% contraction in cotton harvest by 2050, measured against the peak recorded yield for the locality, stressing the footprint of climate change on cotton farming and its latent hazard to food supply. Nonetheless, the flexible strength of the ANN (GFF) frameworks under varying climate storylines delivers auspicious means for weaving ML into climate-adaptive cultivation regimes, advancing durable agrarian safety and curbing the detrimental fallout of climate shifts on nutrition provision.
Journal of Intelligent Agriculture and Food Systems
Original Research | Open access | 15 March 2022 | Article: 51