Climate Change Impact on Agricultural Land Suitability: An Interpretable Machine Learning-Based Eurasia Case Study

The United Nations has identified improving food security and reducing hunger as essential components of its sustainable development goals. As of 2021, approximately 828 million people worldwide are experiencing hunger and malnutrition, with numerous fatalities reported. Climate change significantly impacts agricultural land suitability, potentially leading to severe food shortages and subsequent social and political conflicts. To address this pressing issue, we have developed a machine learning-based approach to predict the risk of substantial land suitability degradation and changes in irrigation patterns. Our study focuses on Central Eurasia, a region burdened with economic and social challenges. This study represents a pioneering effort in utilizing machine learning methods to assess the impact of climate change on agricultural land suitability under various carbon emissions scenarios. Through comprehensive feature importance analysis, we unveil specific climate and terrain characteristics that exert influence on land suitability. Our approach achieves remarkable accuracy, offering policymakers invaluable insights to facilitate informed decisions aimed at averting a humanitarian crisis, including strategies such as the provision of additional water and fertilizers. This research underscores the tremendous potential of machine learning in addressing global challenges, with a particular emphasis on mitigating hunger and malnutrition.