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Author Daccache, A.; Ciurana, J.S.; Diaz, J.A.R.; Knox, J.W.
Title Water and energy footprint of irrigated agriculture in the Mediterranean region Type Journal Article
Year 2014 Publication Environmental Research Letters Abbreviated Journal Environ. Res. Lett.
Volume 9 Issue 12 Pages 124014
Keywords food security; CO2 emissions; nexus; water productivity; water resources; climate-change; southern spain; management; impacts; deficit; grids
Abstract Irrigated agriculture constitutes the largest consumer of freshwater in the Mediterranean region and provides a major source of income and employment for rural livelihoods. However, increasing droughts and water scarcity have highlighted concerns regarding the environmental sustainability of agriculture in the region. An integrated assessment combining a gridded water balance model with a geodatabase and GIS has been developed and used to assess the water demand and energy footprint of irrigated production in the region. Modelled outputs were linked with crop yield and water resources data to estimate water (m(3) kg(-1)) and energy (CO2 kg(-1)) productivity and identify vulnerable areas or `hotspots’. For a selected key crops in the region, irrigation accounts for 61 km(3) yr(-1) of water abstraction and 1.78 Gt CO2 emissions yr-1, with most emissions from sunflower (73 kg CO2/t) and cotton (60 kg CO2/t) production. Wheat is a major strategic crop in the region and was estimated to have a water productivity of 1000 tMm(-3) and emissions of 31 kg CO2/t. Irrigation modernization would save around 8 km(3) of water but would correspondingly increase CO2 emissions by around +135\%. Shifting from rain-fed to irrigated production would increase irrigation demand to 166 km(3) yr(-1) (+137\%) whilst CO2 emissions would rise by +270\%. The study has major policy implications for understanding the water-energy-food nexus in the region and the trade-offs between strategies to save water, reduce CO2 emissions and/or intensify food production.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1748-9326 ISBN Medium (up) Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4747
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Author Jägermeyr, J.; Gerten, D.; Heinke, J.; Schaphoff, S.; Kummu, M.; Lucht, W.
Title Water savings potentials of irrigation systems: global simulation of processes and linkages Type Journal Article
Year 2015 Publication Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abbreviated Journal Hydrol. Earth System Sci.
Volume 19 Issue 7 Pages 3073-3091
Keywords surface-water; vegetation model; climate-change; food demand; fresh-water; efficiency; productivity; groundwater; impacts; requirements
Abstract Global agricultural production is heavily sustained by irrigation, but irrigation system efficiencies are often surprisingly low. However, our knowledge of irrigation efficiencies is mostly confined to rough indicative estimates for countries or regions that do not account for spatiotemporal heterogeneity due to climate and other biophysical dependencies. To allow for refined estimates of global agricultural water use, and of water saving and water productivity potentials constrained by biophysical processes and also nontrivial downstream effects, we incorporated a process-based representation of the three major irrigation systems (surface, sprinkler, and drip) into a bio- and agrosphere model, LPJmL. Based on this enhanced model we provide a gridded world map of irrigation efficiencies that are calculated in direct linkage to differences in system types, crop types, climatic and hydrologic conditions, and overall crop management. We find pronounced regional patterns in beneficial irrigation efficiency (a refined irrigation efficiency indicator accounting for crop-productive water consumption only), due to differences in these features, with the lowest values (< 30 %) in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and the highest values (> 60 %) in Europe and North America. We arrive at an estimate of global irrigation water withdrawal of 2469 km(3) (2004-2009 average); irrigation water consumption is calculated to be 1257 km(3), of which 608 km(3) are non-beneficially consumed, i.e., lost through evaporation, interception, and conveyance. Replacing surface systems by sprinkler or drip systems could, on average across the world’s river basins, reduce the non-beneficial consumption at river basin level by 54 and 76 %, respectively, while maintaining the current level of crop yields. Accordingly, crop water productivity would increase by 9 and 15 %, respectively, and by much more in specific regions such as in the Indus basin. This study significantly advances the global quantification of irrigation systems while providing a framework for assessing potential future transitions in these systems. In this paper, presented opportunities associated with irrigation improvements are significant and suggest that they should be considered an important means on the way to sustainable food security.
Address 2016-06-01
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1607-7938 ISBN Medium (up) Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4739
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Author Balkovič, J.; van der Velde, M.; Schmid, E.; Skalský, R.; Khabarov, N.; Obersteiner, M.; Stürmer, B.; Xiong, W.
Title Pan-European crop modelling with EPIC: Implementation, up-scaling and regional crop yield validation Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Agricultural Systems Abbreviated Journal Agricultural Systems
Volume 120 Issue Pages 61-75
Keywords EPIC; large-scale crop modelling; model performance testing; EU; climate-change; high-resolution; organic-carbon; growth-model; wheat yield; water; calibration; impacts; productivity; simulations
Abstract Justifiable usage of large-scale crop model simulations requires transparent, comprehensive and spatially extensive evaluations of their performance and associated accuracy. Simulated crop yields of a Pan-European implementation of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) crop model were satisfactorily evaluated with reported regional yield data from EUROSTAT for four major crops, including winter wheat, rainfed and irrigated maize, spring barley and winter rye. European-wide land use, elevation, soil and daily meteorological gridded data were integrated in GIS and coupled with EPIC. Default EPIC crop and biophysical process parameter values were used with some minor adjustments according to suggestions from scientific literature. The model performance was improved by spatial calculations of crop sowing densities, potential heat units, operation schedules, and nutrient application rates. EPIC performed reasonable in the simulation of regional crop yields, with long-term averages predicted better than inter-annual variability: linear regression R-2 ranged from 0.58 (maize) to 0.91 (spring barley) and relative estimation errors were between +/- 30% for most of the European regions. The modelled and reported crop yields demonstrated similar responses to driving meteorological variables. However, EPIC performed better in dry compared to wet years. A yield sensitivity analysis of crop nutrient and irrigation management factors and cultivar specific characteristics for contrasting regions in Europe revealed a range in model response and attainable yields. We also show that modelled crop yield is strongly dependent on the chosen PET method. The simulated crop yield variability was lower compared to reported crop yields. This assessment should contribute to the availability of harmonised and transparently evaluated agricultural modelling tools in the EU as well as the establishment of modelling benchmarks as a requirement for sound and ongoing policy evaluations in the agricultural and environmental domains. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Address 2016-06-01
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0308-521x ISBN Medium (up) Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4737
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Author Jägermeyr, J.; Gerten, D.; Schaphoff, S.; Heinke, J.; Lucht, W.; Rockström, J.
Title Integrated crop water management might sustainably halve the global food gap Type Journal Article
Year 2016 Publication Environmental Research Letters Abbreviated Journal Environ. Res. Lett.
Volume 11 Issue 2 Pages 025002
Keywords sustainable intensification; yield gap; water harvesting; conservation agriculture; irrigation efficiency; food security; climate change adaptation; sub-saharan africa; rain-fed agriculture; dry-spell mitigation; supplemental irrigation; climate-change; smallholder irrigation; environmental impacts; developing-countries; semiarid region; south-africa
Abstract As planetary boundaries are rapidly being approached, humanity has little room for additional expansion and conventional intensification of agriculture, while a growing world population further spreads the food gap. Ample evidence exists that improved on-farm water management can close water-related yield gaps to a considerable degree, but its global significance remains unclear. In this modeling study we investigate systematically to what extent integrated crop water management might contribute to closing the global food gap, constrained by the assumption that pressure on water resources and land does not increase. Using a process-based bio-/agrosphere model, we simulate the yield-increasing potential of elevated irrigation water productivity (including irrigation expansion with thus saved water) and optimized use of in situ precipitation water (alleviated soil evaporation, enhanced infiltration, water harvesting for supplemental irrigation) under current and projected future climate (from 20 climate models, with and without beneficial CO2 effects). Results show that irrigation efficiency improvements can save substantial amounts of water in many river basins (globally 48% of non-productive water consumption in an ‘ambitious’ scenario), and if rerouted to irrigate neighboring rainfed systems, can boost kcal production significantly (26% global increase). Low-tech solutions for small-scale farmers on water-limited croplands show the potential to increase rainfed yields to a similar extent. In combination, the ambitious yet achievable integrated water management strategies explored in this study could increase global production by 41% and close the water-related yield gap by 62%. Unabated climate change will have adverse effects on crop yields in many regions, but improvements in water management as analyzed here can buffer such effects to a significant degree.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1748-9326 ISBN Medium (up) Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, TradeM Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4733
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Author Zhang, S.; Tao, F.; Zhang, Z.
Title Changes in extreme temperatures and their impacts on rice yields in southern China from 1981 to 2009 Type Journal Article
Year 2016 Publication Field Crops Research Abbreviated Journal Field Crops Research
Volume 189 Issue Pages 43-50
Keywords Adaptation; Agriculture; Climate change; Crop; Extreme climate; Impacts; climate-change; spikelet sterility; heat-stress; crop yields; water-use; vulnerability; responses; period; CO2
Abstract Extreme temperature impacts on field crop are of key concern and increasingly assessed, however the studies have seldom taken into account the automatic adaptations such as shifts in planting dates, phenological dynamics and cultivars. In this present study, trial data on rice phenology, agro-meteorological hazards and yields during 1981-2009 at 120 national agro-meteorological experiment stations were used. The detailed data provide us a unique opportunity to quantify extreme temperature impacts on rice yield more precisely and in a setting with automatic adaptations. In this study, changes in an accumulated thermal index (growing degree day, GDD), a high temperature stress index (>35 degrees C high temperature degree day, HDD), and a cold stress index (<20 degrees C cold degree day, CDD), were firstly investigated. Then, their impacts on rice yield were further quantified by a multivariable analysis. The results showed that in the past three decades, for early rice, late rice and single rice in western part, and single rice in other parts of the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River, respectively, rice yield increased by 5.83%, 1.71%, 8.73% and 3.49% due to increase in GDD. Rice yield was generally more sensitive to high temperature stress than to cold temperature stress. It decreased by 0.14%, 0.32%, 0.34% and 0.14% due to increase in HDD, by contrast increased by 1.61%, 0.26%, 0.16% and 0.01% due to decrease in CDD, respectively. In addition, decreases in solar radiation reduced rice yield by 0.96%, 0.13%, 9.34% and 6.02%. In the past three decades, the positive impacts of increase in GDD and the negative impacts of decrease in solar radiation played dominant roles in determining overall climate impacts on yield. However, with climate warming in future, the positive impacts of increase in GDD and decrease in CDD will be offset by increase in HDD, resulting in overall negative climate impacts on yield. Our findings highlight the risk of heat stress on rice yield and the importance of developing integrated adaptation strategies to cope with heat stress.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0378-4290 ISBN Medium (up) Article
Area Expedition Conference
Notes CropM, ft_macsur Approved no
Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4731
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