DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity

Journal Article · · Global Environmental Change
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [8];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [6]; ORCiD logo [7];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Aberdeen, Scotland (United Kingdom)
  2. Univ. of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (United Kingdom); Univ. of Edinburgh, Midlothian (United Kingdom)
  3. Univ. of Reading, Reading (United Kingdom)
  4. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  5. Pacific Northwest National Lab., College Park, MD (United States)
  6. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (The Netherlands)
  7. Univ. of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN (United States)
  8. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria)
  9. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba (Japan)
  10. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, St. Lucia, QLD (Australia)
  11. Wageningen Univ. and Research Centre, The Hague (The Netherlands)
  12. Univ. of Exeter, Exeter (United Kingdom)
  13. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. (United States)

Rapidly increasing populations coupled with increased food demand requires either an expansion of agricultural land or sufficient production gains from current resources. However, in a changing world, reduced water availability might undermine improvements in crop and grass productivity and may disproportionately affect different parts of the world. Using multi-model studies, the potential trends, risks and uncertainties to land use and land availability that may arise from reductions in water availability are examined here. In addition, the impacts of different policy interventions on pressures from emerging risks are examined. Results indicate that globally, approximately 11% and 10% of current crop- and grass-lands could be vulnerable to reduction in water availability and may lose some productive capacity, with Africa and the Middle East, China, Europe and Asia particularly at risk. While uncertainties remain, reduction in agricultural land area associated with dietary changes (reduction of food waste and decreased meat consumption) offers the greatest buffer against land loss and food insecurity.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1557674
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1561114
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA--134809
Journal Information:
Global Environmental Change, Journal Name: Global Environmental Change Journal Issue: C Vol. 58; ISSN 0959-3780
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (39)

Diet change and food loss reduction: What is their combined impact on global water use and scarcity? journal March 2016
Assessing uncertainties in land cover projections journal August 2016
Food choices, health and environment: Effects of cutting Europe's meat and dairy intake journal May 2014
Increasing importance of precipitation variability on global livestock grazing lands journal February 2018
Grassland Precipitation-Use Efficiency Varies Across a Resource Gradient journal January 1999
Interactions between temperature and drought in global and regional crop yield variability during 1961-2014 journal May 2017
Can the variability in precipitation simulations across GCMs be reduced through sensible bias correction? journal January 2017
Climate change mitigation through livestock system transitions journal February 2014
Drought Tolerance and Water Use of Cereal Crops: A Focus on Sorghum as a Food Security Crop in Sub-Saharan Africa journal November 2016
Growing sensitivity of maize to water scarcity under climate change journal January 2016
Multi-Temporal Landsat Images and Ancillary Data for Land Use/Cover Change (LULCC) Detection in the Southwest of Burkina Faso, West Africa journal September 2015
Systems integration for global sustainability journal February 2015
Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation journal August 2014
Protein efficiency per unit energy and per unit greenhouse gas emissions: Potential contribution of diet choices to climate change mitigation journal October 2011
Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production journal January 2016
Achieving sustainable irrigation water withdrawals: global impacts on food security and land use journal October 2017
International trade buffers the impact of future irrigation shortfalls journal November 2014
A full greenhouse gases budget of Africa: synthesis, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities journal January 2014
Solutions for a cultivated planet journal October 2011
Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management journal August 2012
Assessing uncertainty of climate change impacts on long-term hydropower generation using the CMIP5 ensemble—the case of Ecuador journal August 2017
An Overview of Global Wheat Market Fundamentals in an Era of Climate Concerns journal January 2017
Possible pathways and tensions in the food and water nexus journal May 2017
Environmental impacts of food supply and obesogenic severity worldwide journal December 2015
Global hydrology modelling and uncertainty: running multiple ensembles with a campus grid
  • Gosling, Simon N.; Bretherton, Dan; Haines, Keith
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 368, Issue 1926 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2010.0164
journal September 2010
Relationship between variability in aboveground net primary production and precipitation in global grasslands journal January 2008
The impact of different policy environments on agricultural land use in Europe journal May 2006
Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures journal November 2017
The implications of climate policy for the impacts of climate change on global water resources journal May 2011
The percentage of total agricultural area under maize, rice, wheat, vegetables, pulses and fruit production, by country, subject to water scarcity in 2050 as estimated from a multi-model ensemble dataset January 2019
Implications of simultaneously mitigating and adapting to climate change: initial experiments using GCAM journal December 2012
Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems journal December 2013
A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity journal August 2013
The percentage of total agricultural area under maize, rice, wheat, vegetables, pulses and fruit production, by country, subject to water scarcity in 2050 as estimated from a multi-model ensemble dataset January 2019
Constraints and potentials of future irrigation water availability on agricultural production under climate change journal December 2013
Crop and Location Specific Agricultural Drought Quantification: Part III. Forecasting Water Stress and Yield Trends journal January 2017
Food and water gaps to 2050: preliminary results from the global food and water system (GFWS) platform journal March 2015
Farming the planet: 2. Geographic distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary production in the year 2000: GLOBAL CROP AREAS AND YIELDS IN 2000 journal March 2008
Multimodel ensembles of wheat growth: many models are better than one journal December 2014

Cited By (4)

Small Landscape Elements Double Connectivity in Highly Fragmented Areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest journal May 2021
Integrated Solutions for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus: Are Global Models Rising to the Challenge? journal October 2019
National Land Use Policy against the Misuse of the Agricultural Land—Causes and Effects. Evidence from Poland journal November 2019
Integrated Solutions for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus: Are Global Models Rising to the Challenge? text January 2019