The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity
Abstract
With a rapidly expanding population and climate change having an impact, pressures on food production systems are expected to increase in coming decades. To meet current demand, it is estimated that over one third of the earth’s land surface is used as cropland or pastures (FAO, 2016b). Although management intensification, such as increasing fertiliser application rates (FAO, 2014b), has led to more productive systems, much of this has been at the expense of the environment, including increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as nitrous oxide (Alexandratos and Buinsma, 2012). Management strategies that aim to achieve high N use efficiencies (Wang et al., 2017) and closing of crop yield gaps have been proposed as ways of alleviating pressures on food production systems (Foley et al., 2011; Mueller et al., 2012). However the net benefits these strategies is predicated on environments that are not resource limited. The aim of this study, therefore, is to combine the projections of changes in water scarcity with the projected areas of future agricultural land, to identify the potential regional vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to water scarcity. By combining global maps of projected cropland and pasture area with an ensemble of water scarcity projections,more »
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Aberdeen, Scotland (United Kingdom)
- Univ. of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (United Kingdom); Univ. of Edinburgh, Midlothian (United Kingdom)
- Univ. of Reading, Reading (United Kingdom)
- Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab., College Park, MD (United States)
- PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (The Netherlands)
- Univ. of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN (United States)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria)
- National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba (Japan)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, St. Lucia, QLD (Australia)
- Wageningen Univ. and Research Centre, The Hague (The Netherlands)
- Univ. of Exeter, Exeter (United Kingdom)
- U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1557674
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1561114
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-134809
Journal ID: ISSN 0959-3780
- Grant/Contract Number:
- NE/M021327/1; AC05-76RL01830
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Global Environmental Change
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 58; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0959-3780
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Land use; Food security; Water availability; Shared socio-economic pathways
Citation Formats
Fitton, N., Alexander, P., Arnell, N., Bajzelj, B., Calvin, K., Doelman, J., Gerber, J. S., Havlik, P., Hasegawa, T., Herrero, M., Krisztin, T., van Meijl, H., Powell, T., Sands, R., Stehfest, E., West, P. C., and Smith, P. The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101944.
Fitton, N., Alexander, P., Arnell, N., Bajzelj, B., Calvin, K., Doelman, J., Gerber, J. S., Havlik, P., Hasegawa, T., Herrero, M., Krisztin, T., van Meijl, H., Powell, T., Sands, R., Stehfest, E., West, P. C., & Smith, P. The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101944
Fitton, N., Alexander, P., Arnell, N., Bajzelj, B., Calvin, K., Doelman, J., Gerber, J. S., Havlik, P., Hasegawa, T., Herrero, M., Krisztin, T., van Meijl, H., Powell, T., Sands, R., Stehfest, E., West, P. C., and Smith, P. Fri .
"The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101944. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1557674.
@article{osti_1557674,
title = {The vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to future water scarcity},
author = {Fitton, N. and Alexander, P. and Arnell, N. and Bajzelj, B. and Calvin, K. and Doelman, J. and Gerber, J. S. and Havlik, P. and Hasegawa, T. and Herrero, M. and Krisztin, T. and van Meijl, H. and Powell, T. and Sands, R. and Stehfest, E. and West, P. C. and Smith, P.},
abstractNote = {With a rapidly expanding population and climate change having an impact, pressures on food production systems are expected to increase in coming decades. To meet current demand, it is estimated that over one third of the earth’s land surface is used as cropland or pastures (FAO, 2016b). Although management intensification, such as increasing fertiliser application rates (FAO, 2014b), has led to more productive systems, much of this has been at the expense of the environment, including increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as nitrous oxide (Alexandratos and Buinsma, 2012). Management strategies that aim to achieve high N use efficiencies (Wang et al., 2017) and closing of crop yield gaps have been proposed as ways of alleviating pressures on food production systems (Foley et al., 2011; Mueller et al., 2012). However the net benefits these strategies is predicated on environments that are not resource limited. The aim of this study, therefore, is to combine the projections of changes in water scarcity with the projected areas of future agricultural land, to identify the potential regional vulnerabilities of agricultural land and food production to water scarcity. By combining global maps of projected cropland and pasture area with an ensemble of water scarcity projections, we aim to quantify the risks that water scarcity could pose to land-based food production in 2050. An in-depth analysis is also undertaken for specific food commodities: maize, rice, wheat, vegetables, fruit and pulses on croplands, and cattle production systems t on grasslands.},
doi = {10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101944},
journal = {Global Environmental Change},
number = C,
volume = 58,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jul 19 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Fri Jul 19 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
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
- Fitton, N.; Alexander, P.; Arnell, N.
- NERC Environmental Information Data Centre
Environmental impacts of food supply and obesogenic severity worldwide
journal, December 2015
- Abbade, Eduardo Botti
- British Food Journal, Vol. 117, Issue 12
Assessing uncertainties in land cover projections
journal, August 2016
- Alexander, Peter; Prestele, Reinhard; Verburg, Peter H.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 23, Issue 2
The implications of climate policy for the impacts of climate change on global water resources
journal, May 2011
- Arnell, Nigel W.; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Isaac, Morna
- Global Environmental Change, Vol. 21, Issue 2
Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation
journal, August 2014
- Bajželj, Bojana; Richards, Keith S.; Allwood, Julian M.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 4, Issue 10
Implications of simultaneously mitigating and adapting to climate change: initial experiments using GCAM
journal, December 2012
- Calvin, Katherine; Wise, Marshall; Clarke, Leon
- Climatic Change, Vol. 117, Issue 3
Assessing uncertainty of climate change impacts on long-term hydropower generation using the CMIP5 ensemble—the case of Ecuador
journal, August 2017
- Carvajal, Pablo E.; Anandarajah, Gabrial; Mulugetta, Yacob
- Climatic Change, Vol. 144, Issue 4
Constraints and potentials of future irrigation water availability on agricultural production under climate change
journal, December 2013
- Elliott, Joshua; Deryng, Delphine; Müller, Christoph
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, Issue 9
An Overview of Global Wheat Market Fundamentals in an Era of Climate Concerns
journal, January 2017
- Enghiad, Aliakbar; Ufer, Danielle; Countryman, Amanda M.
- International Journal of Agronomy, Vol. 2017
Solutions for a cultivated planet
journal, October 2011
- Foley, Jonathan A.; Ramankutty, Navin; Brauman, Kate A.
- Nature, Vol. 478, Issue 7369
Protein efficiency per unit energy and per unit greenhouse gas emissions: Potential contribution of diet choices to climate change mitigation
journal, October 2011
- González, Alejandro D.; Frostell, Björn; Carlsson-Kanyama, Annika
- Food Policy, Vol. 36, Issue 5
A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity
journal, August 2013
- Gosling, Simon N.; Arnell, Nigel W.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 134, Issue 3
Global hydrology modelling and uncertainty: running multiple ensembles with a campus grid
journal, September 2010
- Gosling, Simon N.; Bretherton, Dan; Haines, Keith
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 368, Issue 1926
Possible pathways and tensions in the food and water nexus
journal, May 2017
- Grafton, R. Quentin; Williams, John; Jiang, Qiang
- Earth's Future, Vol. 5, Issue 5
Drought Tolerance and Water Use of Cereal Crops: A Focus on Sorghum as a Food Security Crop in Sub-Saharan Africa
journal, November 2016
- Hadebe, S. T.; Modi, A. T.; Mabhaudhi, T.
- Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science, Vol. 203, Issue 3
Food and water gaps to 2050: preliminary results from the global food and water system (GFWS) platform
journal, March 2015
- Grafton, R. Quentin; Williams, John; Jiang, Qiang
- Food Security, Vol. 7, Issue 2
Climate change mitigation through livestock system transitions
journal, February 2014
- Havlík, Petr; Valin, Hugo; Herrero, Mario
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, Issue 10
Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems
journal, December 2013
- Herrero, M.; Havlik, P.; Valin, H.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 110, Issue 52
Diet change and food loss reduction: What is their combined impact on global water use and scarcity?
journal, March 2016
- Jalava, Mika; Guillaume, Joseph H. A.; Kummu, Matti
- Earth's Future, Vol. 4, Issue 3
Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production
journal, January 2016
- Lesk, Corey; Rowhani, Pedram; Ramankutty, Navin
- Nature, Vol. 529, Issue 7584
Achieving sustainable irrigation water withdrawals: global impacts on food security and land use
journal, October 2017
- Liu, Jing; Hertel, Thomas W.; Lammers, Richard B.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 10
International trade buffers the impact of future irrigation shortfalls
journal, November 2014
- Liu, Jing; Hertel, Thomas W.; Taheripour, Farzad
- Global Environmental Change, Vol. 29
Systems integration for global sustainability
journal, February 2015
- Liu, Jianguo; Mooney, Harold; Hull, Vanessa
- Science, Vol. 347, Issue 6225
Interactions between temperature and drought in global and regional crop yield variability during 1961-2014
journal, May 2017
- Matiu, Michael; Ankerst, Donna P.; Menzel, Annette
- PLOS ONE, Vol. 12, Issue 5
Multimodel ensembles of wheat growth: many models are better than one
journal, December 2014
- Martre, Pierre; Wallach, Daniel; Asseng, Senthold
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 21, Issue 2
Crop and Location Specific Agricultural Drought Quantification: Part III. Forecasting Water Stress and Yield Trends
journal, January 2017
- McDaniel, Rachel L.; Munster, Clyde; Nielsen-Gammon, John
- Transactions of the ASABE, Vol. 60, Issue 3
Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management
journal, August 2012
- Mueller, Nathaniel D.; Gerber, James S.; Johnston, Matt
- Nature, Vol. 490, Issue 7419
The impact of different policy environments on agricultural land use in Europe
journal, May 2006
- van Meijl, H.; van Rheenen, T.; Tabeau, A.
- Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, Vol. 114, Issue 1
Growing sensitivity of maize to water scarcity under climate change
journal, January 2016
- Meng, Qingfeng; Chen, Xinping; Lobell, David B.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Can the variability in precipitation simulations across GCMs be reduced through sensible bias correction?
journal, January 2017
- Nguyen, Ha; Mehrotra, Rajeshwar; Sharma, Ashish
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 49, Issue 9-10
Grassland Precipitation-Use Efficiency Varies Across a Resource Gradient
journal, January 1999
- Paruelo, José M.; Lauenroth, William K.; Burke, Ingrid C.
- Ecosystems, Vol. 2, Issue 1
Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures
journal, November 2017
- Röös, Elin; Bajželj, Bojana; Smith, Pete
- Global Environmental Change, Vol. 47
Increasing importance of precipitation variability on global livestock grazing lands
journal, February 2018
- Sloat, Lindsey L.; Gerber, James S.; Samberg, Leah H.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 3
A full greenhouse gases budget of Africa: synthesis, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities
journal, January 2014
- Valentini, R.; Arneth, A.; Bombelli, A.
- Biogeosciences, Vol. 11, Issue 2
Relationship between variability in aboveground net primary production and precipitation in global grasslands
journal, January 2008
- Yang, Yuanhe; Fang, Jingyun; Ma, Wenhong
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 35, Issue 23
Food choices, health and environment: Effects of cutting Europe's meat and dairy intake
journal, May 2014
- Westhoek, Henk; Lesschen, Jan Peter; Rood, Trudy
- Global Environmental Change, Vol. 26
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
- Zoungrana, Benewinde; Conrad, Christopher; Amekudzi, Leonard
- Remote Sensing, Vol. 7, Issue 9
Works referencing / citing this record:
Integrated Solutions for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus: Are Global Models Rising to the Challenge?
journal, October 2019
- Johnson, Nils; Burek, Peter; Byers, Edward
- Water, Vol. 11, Issue 11
National Land Use Policy against the Misuse of the Agricultural Land—Causes and Effects. Evidence from Poland
journal, November 2019
- Źróbek-Różańska, Alina; Zielińska-Szczepkowska, Joanna
- Sustainability, Vol. 11, Issue 22
Small Landscape Elements Double Connectivity in Highly Fragmented Areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
journal, May 2021
- Siqueira, Flávia Freire; de Carvalho, Dulcineia; Rhodes, Jonathan
- Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 9
Integrated Solutions for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus: Are Global Models Rising to the Challenge?
text, January 2019
- Johnson, Nils; Burek, Peter; Byers, Edward
- Basel : MDPI