The semi-arid and arid regions comprise almost 40 percent of the world's land surface. The low and erratic precipitation pattern is the single most significant contributor for limiting crop production in such regions where rainfall is the source for surface, soil and ground water. In a changing climate, the semi-arid and arid regions would increasingly face the challenge of water scarcity. According to the relevant literature; under the assumption of a doubling of the current atmospheric CO2 concentration, irrigation demand was estimated to increase for wheat and to decrease for second crop maize in a Mediterranean environment of Turkey in the 2070s. Crop evapotranspiration would decrease due to stomata closure. Reference evapotranspiration and potential soil evaporation were projected to increase by 8.0 and 7.3%, respectively, whereas actual soil evaporation was predicted to decrease by 16.5%. Drainage losses below 90 cm soil depth were found to decrease mainly due to lesser rainfall amount in the future.

Crop growth simulation models have been developed as research and management tools. When these models are needed to incorporate new knowledge on phenology and physiology of crops, programming languages have been used for development and documentation of these models. However, researchers may have limited skill in programming languages. Furthermore, software developer may find it challenging to improve the crop models because documentation of the models are rarely available. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) can provide a simple approach for development and documentation of model. A template for implementation of the model can be obtained using the UML, which would facilitate code re-use and model improvement.

Evaluation of climate change on the rice productivity was conducted using crop growth simulation model, where Odae, Hwaseong, Ilpum were used as a representative cultivar of early, medium, and medium-late rice maturity type, respectively, and climate change scenario 'A1B' was applied to weather data for future climate change at 57sites. When cropping season was fixed, rice yield decreased by 4~35% as climate change which was caused by poor filled grain ratio with high temperature and low irradiation during grain-filling. When cropping season was changed, rice yield decreased by only 0~5% as climate change which was caused poor filled grain ratio with low irradiation during grain-filling period. However, this irradiation decline was less than when cropping season was fixed. Therefore, we need to develop rice cultivars resistant to low irradiation which can maintain high filled grain ratio under poor irradiation condition, and late maturity rice cultivars whose growing period is longer than the present medium-late maturity type.

A system for fine-resolution long-range weather forecast is introduced in this study. The system is basically consisted of a global-scale coupled general circulation model (CGCM) and Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) regional model. The system makes use of a data assimilation method in order to reduce the initial shock or drift that occurs at the beginning of coupling due to imbalance between model dynamics and observed initial condition. The long-range predictions are produced in the system based on a non-linear ensemble method. At the same time, the model bias are eliminated by estimating the difference between hindcast model climate and observation. In this research, the predictability of the forecast system is studied, and it is illustrated that the system can be effectively used for the high resolution long-term weather prediction. Also, using the system, fine-resolution climatological data has been produced with high degree of accuracy. It is proved that the production of agrometeorological variables that are not intensively observed are also possible.