Abstract:

Along with the enhancement of tolerance to apparent natural hazards, nowadays, unnoticeable natural hazard has progressively become the key constrain to crop production with a sustainable and balanced yield gain at a large area scale in China. Understanding the mechanisms, characteristics and overcoming strategies to the unnoticeable natural hazards can provide important theoretical and technological supports to the implement strategies for hazard alleviation. Based on a summary of unnoticeable natural hazard patterns (i.e. heat stress, frost/chilling, cloudy and drizzly weather, periodical drought, and water logging), the impacts of each unnoticeable hazard on crop production was assessed in this article. At both the crop and the regional scales, the main reasons and characteristics of these unnoticeable natural hazards were illustrated. The occurring trend of unnoticeable natural hazards under the background of climate change was analyzed as well. Finally, some measurements (e.g. field condition improvement, new crop variety breeding, cropping technique innovation, etc) were recommended to increase the tolerance of agro-ecosystem, the adaptability of crop varieties, and the buffer capacity of cropping system to the unnoticeable natural hazards, so as to increase crop productivity and ensure food security in China.