Identifying agricultural disaster risk zones for future climate actions

The economic and environmental disasters of these concurrent events will therefore be more severe than the single extreme events [19]. The agricultural sector is the most vulnerable economic sector to climate change and climate-related disasters [20–22] with extreme weather events capable of significantly disrupting agricultural production. As this sector is linked to other regional economic sectors such as transport, industry, finance [23–25], shocks due to agricultural production losses can spread to other sectors thereby amplifying their overall eco- nomic impact [19]. For regions where the agricultural sector is the backbone of the economy, the impact of climate-related disasters such as heat stress-induced multiple harvest failure will gravely affect the economy [26]. As the global supply and trade network becomes increasingly complex, the economic impact of climate-related disasters can be felt in some regions far from their epicenters through the propagation of shocks down supply and trade networks. These shocks are capable of interfering with each other thereby amplifying their overall economic impact over a region [23]. Since extreme weather events are usually unpredictable, regions that experience the most impact but are not directly hit by the unprecedented event are considered here to be at risk. The effects of extreme weather events such as heatwaves on crop yield and productivity, animal reproductivity, and their corresponding socio-economic impacts have been widely studied in the literature [27–34]. E. R. Jordan [28] investigates the effects of heat stress on

reproduction. He found that, when dairy cattle are subjected to heat stress, reproductive effi- ciency declines. J. W. West [29] in his paper on the effects of heat-Stress on production in dairy cattle, found that increasing air temperature, temperature-humidity index, and rising rectal temperature above some critical thresholds are related to decreased dry matter intake (DMI) and milk yield and equally reduces the efficiency of milk yield. These two interesting findings in the meat and milk sectors, will lead to production shocks that can spread around the globe through supply networks. Sergei. S et al [34] investigated the effects of drought on hay and feed grain prices. By making use of an empirical example from Germany and focus on the prices of hay as well as feed wheat and barley, their results show that regional and national droughts substantially increase hay prices by up to 15%, starting with a delay of about 3 months and lasting for about a year. A thorough assessment of the evolving fragility of the global food system to price shocks was carried out by Michael J Puma et al [26]. They found a greater absolute reduction in global wheat and rice exports along with larger losses in network connectivity as the networks evolve due to disruptions in European wheat and Asian rice pro- duction. Importantly, their findings also indicate that least developed countries suffer greater import losses in more connected networks through their increased dependence on imports for staple foods. Additionally, L. Parker et al [20] investigated the vulnerability of the agricultural

sector to climate change with emphasis on the development of a pan-tropical Climate Risk Vulnerability Assessment to inform sub-national decision making. The concept of agriculture losses in a telecoupled world has equally been investigated. Bren d’Amour et al [35], investigate which countries are most vulnerable to teleconnected supply shocks. They found that the Mid- dle East is most sensitive to teleconnected supply shocks in wheat, Central America to supply shocks in maize, and Western Africa to supply shocks in rice. Vogel et al [36] had similar results when they investigated the effects of climate extremes on global agricultural yields. Connors et al [37] equally investigated agricultural losses in a telecoupled world by making use of an integrated assessment model. They demonstrated how shocks to production in one loca- tion may have profound impacts on land use and emissions in geographically distant areas. The agent-based economic model Acclimate has widely been applied in the literature to assess first order and higher-order economic losses from natural and climate-related disasters. Wenz et al [24] made use of Acclimate to find that the increasing connectivity of international trade networks has the potential to amplify climate losses if no adaptation measures are taken PLOS ONE Identifying agricultural disaster risk zones for future climate actions PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260430 December 2, 2021 2 / 16 Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.