Advancing Climate-Smart Agriculture: A Global Assessment of Climate Impacts on Crop Yield and Adaptation Effectiveness Across Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Climate change is intensifying crop yield variability across arid and semi-arid regions, yet the effectiveness of widely implemented adaptation strategies remains insufficiently quantified. We systematically reviewed 157 crop modeling studies over two decades (2005–2024) to assess yield responses and adaptation effectiveness for five crops (maize, wheat, rice, sorghum, and barley). Using a predefined set of inclusion criteria across six databases (ProQuest, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Taylor & Francis Online, and JSTOR) in an independent dual review, the results show that rising temperatures and erratic precipitation substantially reduced maize yields by 20.32% (range = 0.4–63%) and wheat yield by 15% (range = 0.05–64%), followed by rice (14.72%, range = 4–37%) and sorghum (14.54%, range = 1–36%). Localized adaptation partially offset approximately 12–19% of climate-driven reductions. An “adaptation effectiveness gap,” representing the difference between local adaptation benefits and global mean potential, showed that most locations achieved 7% greater than global benchmarks for comparable strategies. East and South Asia, as well as Eastern Africa, underperformed, whereas Europe and North America exceeded the global average. Disparities emanated from data limitations, methodology, and local agronomic conditions. This review offers a transferable framework for guiding effective, region-specific climate adaptation planning.