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As recent events have shown, simultaneous crop losses in different parts of the world can cause serious risks to global food security. However, to date, little is known about the spatial dependency of lower than expected crop yields from global breadbaskets. This especially applies in the case of extreme events, i.e., where one or more breadbaskets are experiencing far below average yields. Without such information, risk management approaches cannot be applied and vulnerability to extremes may remain high or even increase in the future around the world. We tackle both issues from an empirical perspective focusing on wheat yield. Interdependencies between historically observed wheat yield deviations in five breadbaskets (United States, Argentina, India, China, and Australia) are estimated via copula approaches that can incorporate increasing tail dependencies. In doing so, we are able to attach probabilities to interregional as well as global yield losses. To address the robustness of our results, we apply three different methods for constructing multivariate copulas: vine copulas, ordered coupling using a minimax approach, and hierarchical structuring. We found interdependencies between states within breadbaskets that led us to the conclusion that risk pooling for extremes is less favorable on the regional level. However, notwithstanding evidence of global climatic teleconnections that may influence crop production, we also demonstrate empirically that wheat production losses are independent between global breadbaskets, which strengthens the case for interregional risk pooling strategies. We argue that through interregional risk pooling, postdisaster liabilities of governments and international donors could be decreased.

As recent events have shown, simultaneous crop losses in different parts of the world can cause serious risks to global food security. However, to date, little is known about the spatial dependency of lower than expected crop yields from global breadbaskets. This especially applies in the case of extreme events, i.e., where one or more breadbaskets are experiencing far below average yields. Without such information, risk management approaches cannot be applied and vulnerability to extremes may remain high or even increase in the future around the world. We tackle both issues from an empirical perspective focusing on wheat yield. Interdependencies between historically observed wheat yield deviations in five breadbaskets (United States, Argentina, India, China, and Australia) are estimated via copula approaches that can incorporate increasing tail dependencies. In doing so, we are able to attach probabilities to interregional as well as global yield losses. To address the robustness of our results, we apply three different methods for constructing multivariate copulas: vine copulas, ordered coupling using a minimax approach, and hierarchical structuring. We found interdependencies between states within breadbaskets that led us to the conclusion that risk pooling for extremes is less favorable on the regional level. However, notwithstanding evidence of global climatic teleconnections that may influence crop production, we also demonstrate empirically that wheat production losses are independent between global breadbaskets, which strengthens the case for interregional risk pooling strategies. We argue that through interregional risk pooling, postdisaster liabilities of governments and international donors could be decreased.

As recent events have shown, simultaneous crop losses in different parts of the world can cause serious risks to global food security. However, to date, little is known about the spatial dependency of lower than expected crop yields from global breadbaskets. This is even more so the case for extreme events, i.e. were one or more breadbaskets are experiencing far below average yields. Without such information risk management approaches cannot be applied and vulnerability to extremes may remain high or even increase in the future around the world. We tackle both issues from an empirical perspective focusing on wheat yield. Interdependencies between historically observed wheat yield deviations in 5 breadbaskets (USA, Argentina, India, China and Australia) are estimated via copula approaches that can incorporate increasing tail dependencies. In doing so, we are able to attach probabilities to inter -regional as well as global yield losses. To address the robustness of our results we apply three different methods for constructing multivariate copulas: vine copulas, ordered coupling using a mini - max approach and hierarchical structuring. We found interdependencies between states within breadbaskets which led us to the conclusion that risk pooling for extremes are less favorable on the regional level. However, notwithstanding evidence of global climatic teleconnections that may influence crop production, we also demonstrate empirically that wheat production losses are independent between global bread baskets which strengthens the case for inter -regional risk pooling strategies. We argue that through inter -regional risk pooling, post -disaster liabilities of governments and international donors could be decreased.

As climate change continues, it is expected to have increasingly adverse impacts on child nutrition outcomes, and these impacts will be moderated by a variety of governmental, economic, infrastructural, and environmental factors. To date, attempts to map the vulnerability of food systems to climate change and drought have focused on mapping these factors but have not incorporated observations of historic climate shocks and nutrition outcomes. We significantly improve on these approaches by using over 580,000 observations of children from 53 countries to examine how precipitation extremes since 1990 have affected nutrition outcomes. We show that precipitation extremes and drought in particular are associated with worse child nutrition. We further show that the effects of drought on child undernutrition are mitigated or amplified by a variety of factors that affect both the adaptive capacity and sensitivity of local food systems with respect to shocks. Finally, we estimate a model drawing on historical observations of drought, geographic conditions, and nutrition outcomes to make a global map of where child stunting would be expected to increase under drought based on current conditions. As climate change makes drought more commonplace and more severe, these results will aid policymakers by highlighting which areas are most vulnerable as well as which factors contribute the most to creating resilient food systems.

As climate change continues, it is expected to have increasingly adverse impacts on child nutrition outcomes, and these impacts will be moderated by a variety of governmental, economic, infrastructural, and environmental factors. To date, attempts to map the vulnerability of food systems to climate change and drought have focused on mapping these factors but have not incorporated observations of historic climate shocks and nutrition outcomes. We significantly improve on these approaches by using over 580,000 observations of children from 53 countries to examine how precipitation extremes since 1990 have affected nutrition outcomes. We show that precipitation extremes and drought in particular are associated with worse child nutrition. We further show that the effects of drought on child undernutrition are mitigated or amplified by a variety of factors that affect both the adaptive capacity and sensitivity of local food systems with respect to shocks. Finally, we estimate a model drawing on historical observations of drought, geographic conditions, and nutrition outcomes to make a global map of where child stunting would be expected to increase under drought based on current conditions. As climate change makes drought more commonplace and more severe, these results will aid policymakers by highlighting which areas are most vulnerable as well as which factors contribute the most to creating resilient food systems.