Modeling of rice production areas in southern Brazil, under extreme climate scenarios

Rice is an important brazilian agricultural product, with the Rio Grande do Sul state being the largest national producer, furthermore, agriculture is an activity extremely dependent on climatic conditions. The objective of this work is to show how future climate change scenarios can directly affect rice production capacity in southern Brazil, using maximum entropy mathematical modeling for the prediction of areas favorable to the crop today and in two extreme scenarios, from 2021 to the year 2100. The data reveal that in any future scenario there is a projection of a reduction in productive areas and a fragmentation of these areas, which will require different strategies to face this effect of climate change on rice production in southern Brazil.