Half of twenty-first century global irrigation expansion has been in water-stressed regions
University of Delaware · University of Göttingen · +5 more institutions
Abstract
Abstract The expansion of irrigated agriculture has increased global crop production but resulted in widespread stress on freshwater resources. Ensuring that increases in irrigated production occur only in places where water is relatively abundant is a key objective of sustainable agriculture and knowledge of how irrigated land has evolved is important for measuring progress towards water sustainability. Yet, a spatially detailed understanding of the evolution of the global area equipped for irrigation (AEI) is missing. In this study, we used the latest subnational irrigation statistics (covering 17,298 administrative units) from various official sources to develop a gridded (5 arcmin resolution) global…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 36.16
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 42
Authors
8Topics & keywords
- Irrigation
- Environmental science
- Water resource management
- Geography
- Hydrology (agriculture)
- Geology
- Geotechnical engineering
- Agronomy
- Zero hunger