ABSTRACT
Climate change and global warming effects are well recorded over recent decades. Relevant literature includes a number of global and local overviews of the medium-and long-term impacts of climate change, whereas several scenarios have been suggested in order to forecast its environmental and economic impacts (Arnell et al. 2004; Giannakopoulos et al. 2009). It is not surprising that climate change is widely recognized as a key driver of water availability (Parish et al. 2012), migration and future demographic change (Hugo 2011). In addition, continuing population and consumption growth, along with growing competition for land, water and energy, will affect the world’s ability to nourish its population in the forthcoming years (Godfray et al. 2010). The effects of abiotic environmental stresses are a further threat. These negatively impact crop productivity and are major constraints to global food security. As a consequence of global change, certain stress factors such as heat, drought, salinity, soil heavy metal accumulation, tropospheric ozone, and excess UV radiation might become even more prevalent in the coming decades (Wang and Frei 2011). Projections to adverse abiotic conditions suggest that large yield losses will be occurring in many regions, particularly in arid and semi-arid countries worldwide (Bray et al. 2000), consequently limiting production on most of the world’s arable land (Gale 2003).
