Relationship Between Climate Variables and Rubber Production in the Coastal areas of the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea
Atsamon Limsakul** Sayan Sdoodee** and Wutthichai Paengkaew*
*ศูนย์วิจัยและฝึกอบรมด้านสิ่งแวดล้อม กรมส่งเสริมคุณภาพสิ่งแวดล้อม เทคโนธานี ปทุมธานี 12120
**ภาควิชาพืชศาสตร์ คณะทรัพยากรธรรมชาติ มหาวิทยาลัยสงขลานครินทร์ สงขลา 90110
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Abstract
Para rubber is the main economic crop in the southern Thailand which its growth and production depend strongly on climate. Therefore, changing climate can have substantial impact on physiology, growth and production. In this study, relationships between rubber production in the southern Thailand and climate variables were analyzed. The results revealed that, as evident in the second mode of Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF), an annual cycle of rubber production both the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea had good correlations with the covariance of multiple climate variables (temperature, rainfall, humidity, evaporation and wind speed). This analysis indicates complex relationship between annual rubber production and climate variables which is regarded as a second-order moment often hidden under the dominant first-order variance. For seasonal to interannual variations, rubber production in the southern Thailand exhibited significant correlation with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena. Rubber production tended to be higher than normal during El Niño events whereas it was lower than usual during La Niña events. The results further illustrated that rubber production in the southern Thailand significantly correlated with climate extreme indices (annual number of rainy days and simple rainfall intensity). Para rubber had higher yields in the years of declines in the frequency of rain events and rainfall intensity. In contrast, rubber yields decreased in the years of enhancement of the frequency of rain events and rainfall intensity. Based on this analysis, better understanding of the mechanisms underlying such relationships is required further studies to build new knowledge that is useful for supporting decision-making processes and for setting measures to reduce the adverse impacts and damages from current and future climate change.
Keywords : Climate variables; Rubber production; Empirical Orthogonal function
วารสารวิศวกรรมสิ่งแวดล้อมไทย ปีที่ 28 ฉบับที่ 2-3 : หน้า 67-77 (2557)
