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Baum, Z., Palatnik, R. R., Kan, I., & Rapaport-Rom, M. (2016). Economic Impacts of Water Scarcity Under Diverse Water Salinities. Water Econs. Policy, 02(01), 1550013.
Abstract: Exploitation of alternative water sources is expected to grow in the decades to come in water-stressed countries with fast population growth, especially in regions where a further decline of natural freshwater availability is expected due to climate change. Increasing utilization of non-freshwater usually leads to salinity build-up in fields and water sources as well as accumulation of various pollutants — both having a considerable impact on the suitability of non-freshwater for irrigation due to constraints associated with crop salinity tolerance and food safety regulations. We developed a linked Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) — farm-level model of a water economy with representation for multiple water types characterized by different qualities. We employ the model to assess the impact of water shortage on the Israeli economy, where steadily growing water scarcity leads to an increasing utilization of alternative water sources. We simulate water shortage scenarios based on the Long Term National Master Plan for The Water Economy developed by the Israeli Water Authority (IWA). The linked CGE — farm-level model provides a mechanism for estimating the Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) rates between different irrigation water types used in agriculture. This mechanism accounts for the effects of salinity on yields and takes into consideration food safety regulations for irrigating crops with treated wastewater. We demonstrate that, in contrast to previous studies, CES rates between different water types are not identical. The CES rates obtained in our study have relatively low values, which can be attributed to the constraints associated with crop salinity tolerance and food safety regulations. Our results reveal that water shortage can lead to a significant decline of Israel’s GDP, where a considerable part of the decline is attributed to the decrease in agricultural outputs. The magnitude of the impact depends on the underlying assumptions regarding future desalination capacity. To further study the effect of desalination, we run simulations under various desalination levels and examine its impact on the GDP. We also examine the extent to which the impact of water shortage is sensitive to CES rates between different irrigation water types.
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Bennett, E., Carpenter, S. R., Gordon, L. J., Ramankutty, N., Balvanera, P., Campbell, B., et al. (2014). Toward a more resilient agriculture. The Solutions Journal, 5(5), 65–75.
Abstract: Agriculture is a key driver of change in the Anthropocene. It is both a critical factor for human well-being and development and a major driver of environmental decline. As the human population expands to more than 9 billion by 2050, we will be compelled to find ways to adequately feed this population while simultaneously decreasing the environmental impact of agriculture, even as global change is creating new circumstances to which agriculture must respond. Many proposals to accomplish this dual goal of increasing agricultural production while reducing its environmental impact are based on increasing the efficiency of agricultural production relative to resource use and relative to unintended outcomes such as water pollution, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions. While increasing production efficiency is almost certainly necessary, it is unlikely to be sufficient and may in some instances reduce long-term agricultural resilience, for example, by degrading soil and increasing the fragility of agriculture to pest and disease outbreaks and climate shocks. To encourage an agriculture that is both resilient and sustainable, radically new approaches to agricultural development are needed. These approaches must build on a diversity of solutions operating at nested scales, and they must maintain and enhance the adaptive and transformative capacity needed to respond to disturbances and avoid critical thresholds. Finding such approaches will require that we encourage experimentation, innovation, and learning, even if they sometimes reduce short-term production efficiency in some parts of the world.
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Ventrella, D., Giglio, L., Charfeddine, M., & Dalla Marta, A. (2015). Consumptive use of green and blue water for winter durum wheat cultivated in Southern Italy. Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, 20(1), 33–44.
Abstract: In this study at the regional scale, the model DSSAT CERES-Wheat was applied in order to simulate the cultivation of winter durum wheat (WW) and to estimate the green water (GW) and the blue water (BW) through a dual-step approach (with and without supplemental irrigation). The model simulation covered a period of 30 years for three scenarios including a reference period and two future scenarios based on forecasted global average temperature increase of 2 and 5 degrees C. The GW and BW contribution for evapo transpiration requirement is presented and analyzed on a distributed scale related to the Puglia region (Southern Italy) characterized by high evaporative demand of the atmosphere. The GW component was dominant compared to BW, covering almost 90% of the ETc of WW Under a Baseline scenario the weight BW was 11%, slightly increased in the future scenarios. GW appeared dependent on the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall during the crop cycle, and to the hydraulic characteristics of soil for each calculation unit. After considering the effects of climate change on irrigation requirement of WW we carried out an example of analysis in order to verify the economic benefit of supplemental irrigation for WW cultivation. The probability that irrigation generates a negative or zero income ranged between 55 and 60% and climate change did not impact the profitability of irrigation for WW as simulated for the economic and agro-pedoclimatic conditions of Puglia region considered in this study.
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Vosough Ahmadi, B., Shrestha, S., Thomson, S. G., Barnes, A. P., & Stott, A. W. (2015). Impacts of greening measures and flat rate regional payments of the Common Agricultural Policy on Scottish beef and sheep farms. J. Agric. Sci., 153(04), 676–688.
Abstract: The latest Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms could bring substantial changes to Scottish farming communities. Two major components of this reform package, an introduction of environmental measures into the Pillar 1 payments and a move away from historical farm payments towards regionalized area payments, would have a significant effect on altering existing support structures for Scottish farmers, as it would for similar farm types elsewhere in Europe where historic payments are used. An optimizing farm-level model was developed to explore how Scottish beef and sheep farms might be affected by the greening and flat rate payments under the current CAP reforms. Nine different types of beef and sheep farms were identified and detailed biophysical and financial farm-level data for these farm types were used to parameterize the model. Results showed that the greening measures of the CAP did not have much impact on net margins of most of the beef and sheep farm businesses, except for ‘Beef Finisher’ farm types where the net margins decreased by 3%. However, all farm types were better off adopting the greening measures than not qualifying for the greening payments through non-compliance with the measures. The move to regionalized farm payments increased the negative financial impact of greening on most of the farms but it was still substantially lower than the financial sacrifice of not adopting greening measures. Results of maximizing farm net margin, under a hypothetical assumption of excluding farm payments, showed that in most of the mixed (sheep and cattle) and beef suckler cattle farms the optimum stock numbers predicted by the model were lower than actual figures on farm. When the regionalized support payments were allocated to each farm, the proportion of the mixed farms that would increase their stock numbers increased whereas this proportion decreased for beef suckler farms and no impact was predicted in sheep farms. Also under the regionalized support payments, improvements in profitability were found in mixed farms and sheep farms. Some of the specialized beef suckler farms also returned a profit when CAP support was added.
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Wu, L., Whitmore, A. P., & Bellocchi, G. (2015). Modelling the impact of environmental changes on grassland systems with SPACSYS. Advances in Animal Biosciences, 6(01), 37–39.
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