Drought is a major natural disaster causing crop yield losses, while its occurrence mechanism and spatiotemporal variations in a changing climate are still not clear. Based on a long-term climatic dataset (during 1958–2015) from weather stations in the North China Plain (NCP), the influencing mechanism of various climatic factors on drought risk of winter wheat was quantified by using sensitivity analysis, Mann-Kendall trend test and slope estimation. The results indicated that climatic factors have changed considerably over the past six decades in the growth season of winter wheat. As a result, winter wheat suffered from severe droughts (with 350 mm of water deficit during its growth season), particularly at the jointing–heading and heading–mature stages, which were critical to crop yield formation. There were large spatial and temporal variations in drought risk and climatic change factors at different growth stages of winter wheat. Despite precipitation playing a vital role in determining the spatiotemporal patterns of drought risk, high temperature and low humidity along with other climatic factors at key growth stages of winter wheat aggravated drought risk. Particularly, temperature at nearly 90% weather stations showed a notablely upward trend, which exacerbated water deficit and drought risk of winter wheat. Given the complexity and high uncertainty of climate change, these findings provide important information for adapting crop production to future climate change and accompanied droughts while ensuring food security and agricultural sustainability.

Salinity is one of the major abiotic factors affecting the growth and productivity of crops in Hetao Irrigation District, China. In this study, the salinity tolerances of three local crops, wheat (Triticum aestinum L.), maize (Zea mays L.) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), growing in 76 farm fields are evaluated with modified discount function. Salinity ecological zones appropriate for these local crops are characterized and a case study is presented for crop salinity ecological zoning. The results show that the yield reductions of wheat, maize and sunflower when grown in saline soils are attributed primarily to a reduction in spikelet number, 1 000-grain weight and seed number per head, respectively. Sunflower is the most tolerant crop among the three which had a salinity tolerance index (ST-index) of 12.24, followed by spring maize and spring wheat with ST-Indices of 9.00 and 7.43, respectively. According to the crop salinity tolerance results, the arable land in the Heping Village of this district was subdivided into four salinity ecological zones: the most suitable, suitable, sub-suitable and unsuitable zones. The area proportion of the most suitable zone for wheat, maize and sunflower within the Heping Village was 27.5, 46.5 and 77.5%, respectively. Most of the most suitable zone occurred in the western part of the village. The results of this study provide the scientific basis for optimizing the local major crop distribution and improving cultural practices management in Hetao Irrigation District.