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Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate

Climate change is expected to affect crop production worldwide, particularly in rain-fed agricultural regions. It is still unknown how irrigation water needs will change in a warmer planet and where freshwater will be locally available to expand irrigation without depleting freshwater resources. Her...

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Autores principales: Rosa, Lorenzo, Chiarelli, Davide Danilo, Sangiorgio, Matteo, Beltran-Peña, Areidy Aracely, Rulli, Maria Cristina, D’Odorico, Paolo, Fung, Inez
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703655/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33168728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017796117
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author Rosa, Lorenzo
Chiarelli, Davide Danilo
Sangiorgio, Matteo
Beltran-Peña, Areidy Aracely
Rulli, Maria Cristina
D’Odorico, Paolo
Fung, Inez
author_facet Rosa, Lorenzo
Chiarelli, Davide Danilo
Sangiorgio, Matteo
Beltran-Peña, Areidy Aracely
Rulli, Maria Cristina
D’Odorico, Paolo
Fung, Inez
author_sort Rosa, Lorenzo
collection PubMed
description Climate change is expected to affect crop production worldwide, particularly in rain-fed agricultural regions. It is still unknown how irrigation water needs will change in a warmer planet and where freshwater will be locally available to expand irrigation without depleting freshwater resources. Here, we identify the rain-fed cropping systems that hold the greatest potential for investment in irrigation expansion because water will likely be available to suffice irrigation water demand. Using projections of renewable water availability and irrigation water demand under warming scenarios, we identify target regions where irrigation expansion may sustain crop production under climate change. Our results also show that global rain-fed croplands hold significant potential for sustainable irrigation expansion and that different irrigation strategies have different irrigation expansion potentials. Under a 3 °C warming, we find that a soft-path irrigation expansion with small monthly water storage and deficit irrigation has the potential to expand irrigated land by 70 million hectares and feed 300 million more people globally. We also find that a hard-path irrigation expansion with large annual water storage can sustainably expand irrigation up to 350 million hectares, while producing food for 1.4 billion more people globally. By identifying where irrigation can be expanded under a warmer climate, this work may serve as a starting point for investigating socioeconomic factors of irrigation expansion and may guide future research and resources toward those agricultural communities and water management institutions that will most need to adapt to climate change.
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spelling pubmed-77036552020-12-10 Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate Rosa, Lorenzo Chiarelli, Davide Danilo Sangiorgio, Matteo Beltran-Peña, Areidy Aracely Rulli, Maria Cristina D’Odorico, Paolo Fung, Inez Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Climate change is expected to affect crop production worldwide, particularly in rain-fed agricultural regions. It is still unknown how irrigation water needs will change in a warmer planet and where freshwater will be locally available to expand irrigation without depleting freshwater resources. Here, we identify the rain-fed cropping systems that hold the greatest potential for investment in irrigation expansion because water will likely be available to suffice irrigation water demand. Using projections of renewable water availability and irrigation water demand under warming scenarios, we identify target regions where irrigation expansion may sustain crop production under climate change. Our results also show that global rain-fed croplands hold significant potential for sustainable irrigation expansion and that different irrigation strategies have different irrigation expansion potentials. Under a 3 °C warming, we find that a soft-path irrigation expansion with small monthly water storage and deficit irrigation has the potential to expand irrigated land by 70 million hectares and feed 300 million more people globally. We also find that a hard-path irrigation expansion with large annual water storage can sustainably expand irrigation up to 350 million hectares, while producing food for 1.4 billion more people globally. By identifying where irrigation can be expanded under a warmer climate, this work may serve as a starting point for investigating socioeconomic factors of irrigation expansion and may guide future research and resources toward those agricultural communities and water management institutions that will most need to adapt to climate change. National Academy of Sciences 2020-11-24 2020-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7703655/ /pubmed/33168728 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017796117 Text en Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Physical Sciences
Rosa, Lorenzo
Chiarelli, Davide Danilo
Sangiorgio, Matteo
Beltran-Peña, Areidy Aracely
Rulli, Maria Cristina
D’Odorico, Paolo
Fung, Inez
Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate
title Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate
title_full Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate
title_fullStr Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate
title_full_unstemmed Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate
title_short Potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °C warmer climate
title_sort potential for sustainable irrigation expansion in a 3 °c warmer climate
topic Physical Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703655/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33168728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017796117
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