Crop migration can moderate the impacts of global warming on crop production, but its feedback on the climate and environment remains unknown. Here we develop an integrated framework to capture the climate impacts and the feedback of adaptation behaviours with the land–water–energy–carbon nexus perspective and identify opportunities to achieve the synergies between climate adaptation and environmental sustainability. We apply the framework to assess wheat and maize migration in the North China Plain and show that adaptation through wheat migration could increase crop production by ~18.5% in the 2050s, but at the cost of disproportional increment in land use (~19.2%), water use (~20.2%), energy use (~19.5%) and carbon emissions (~19.9%). Irrigation and fertilization management are critical mitigation opportunities in the framework, through which wheat migration can be optimized to reduce the climatic and environmental impacts and avoid potential carbon leakage. Our work highlights the sustainable climate adaptation to mitigate negative environmental externalities.

作物迁移可以减轻全球变暖对作物生产的影响，但其对气候和环境的反馈仍不清楚。在这里，我们开发了一个综合框架，从土地-水-能源-碳关系的角度捕捉气候影响和适应行为的反馈，并确定实现气候适应和环境可持续性之间协同作用的机会。我们应用该框架来评估华北平原的小麦和玉米迁移，结果表明，通过小麦迁移进行适应可以在 2050 年代使作物产量增加约 18.5%，但代价是土地利用不成比例的增加 (约 19.2%)，用水量（~20.2%）、能源使用量（~19.5%）和碳排放量（~19.9%）。灌溉和施肥管理是该框架中关键的缓解机会，通过它们可以优化小麦迁移，以减少气候和环境影响并避免潜在的碳泄漏。我们的工作强调可持续的气候适应，以减轻负面的环境外部性。