Over 90% of Swedish agriculture is rainfed, and thus future climate change can pose a risk to agricultural production in coming decades. An overall increase in annual precipitation is predicted for northern Europe, but Sweden could still face an increasing need for irrigation, as shown by the drought summer of 2018. Adaptation of Swedish agriculture to include irrigated agriculture should thus be considered. To evaluate the theoretical need for irrigation, calculations were performed for different locations in Sweden, and for different soil-crop pairs at each location. In-situ weather data from a projected climate dataset created by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute were used to evaluate changes in irrigation need over the period 1981–2050. The results showed an increasing need for irrigation of cereal crops during the early season (May–June), for two main reasons: i) A shift to an earlier start of the cropping period, leading to an earlier need for irrigation; and ii) a higher probability of dry spring weather, substantially increasing the irrigation requirement in dry years. Crops for which the growing season starts later (e.g., potatoes) showed an increasing need for irrigation during July. Crop development stages were predicted to occur earlier, leading to earlier harvesting, reducing the irrigation requirement in August. However, the calculation approach developed for this study may have underestimated the need for irrigation, which could be higher than reported here.

瑞典90％以上的农业都是靠雨水灌溉，因此未来的气候变化可能会在未来几十年内对农业生产构成威胁。预计北欧地区的年降水量总体上将增加，但是瑞典仍可能面临灌溉需求的增加，如2018年夏季干旱所示。因此，应考虑使瑞典农业适应包括灌溉农业在内的问题。为了评估理论上的灌溉需求，对瑞典的不同地点以及每个地点的不同土壤作物对进行了计算。原位来自瑞典气象水文研究所创建的预计气候数据集的气象数据用于评估1981-2050年期间的灌溉需求变化。结果表明，在早期季节（5月至6月）对谷物作物的灌溉需求增加，其主要原因有两个：i）过渡到较早的播种期，导致较早的灌溉需求；ii）春季干旱天气的可能性更高，从而大大增加了干旱年份的灌溉需求。生长季节开始较晚的农作物（例如土豆）在7月期间对灌溉的需求增加。预计作物生长阶段会更早发生，从而导致更早收获，从而减少了8月份的灌溉需求。然而，