Global potential to increase crop production through water management in rainfed agriculture

By S. Rost, Dieter Gerten, H. Hoff, Wolfgang Lucht, M. Falkenmark, J. Rockström. 2009

167 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This modeling study explores—spatially explicitly, for current and projected future climate, and for different management intensity levels—the potential for increasing global crop production through on-farm water management strategies: (a) reducing soil evaporation (‘vapor shift’) and (b) collecting runoff on cropland and using it during dry spells (‘runoff harvesting’). A moderate scenario, implying both a 25% reduction in evaporation and a 25% collection of runoff, suggests that global crop production can be increased by 19%, which is comparable with the effect of current irrigation (17%). Climate change alone (three climate models, SRES A2r emissions and population, constant land use) will reduce global crop production by 9% by 2050, which could be buffered by a vapor shift level of 50% or a water harvesting level of 25%. Even if realization of the beneficial effects of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration upon plants was ensured (by fertilizer use) in tandem with the above moderate water management scenario, the water available on current cropland will not meet the requirements of a world population of 9–10 billion.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5fddcd88eceb65de89e28d8c8ba843659290e199

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Global and Planetary Change

Citations in the corpus

The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crops products (2011, background): “Globally, the current cereal production would be significantly lower if no blue water is applied (Hoff et al., 2010; Rost et al., 2009; Siebert and Döll, 2010).”
Constraints and potentials of future irrigation water availability on agricultural production under climate change (2013, background): “Depending on local conditions, increases in irrigation capacity and efficiency need to be complemented by efforts to increase water use efficiency and soil conservation in rainfed systems as well, which have a demonstrated capacity to boost crop yields without further exploiting freshwater resources”
Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies (2010, background): “%) for reductions in soil evaporation and water harvesting into a dynamic global vegetation and water balance model, Rost et al. (2009) predicted that global crop production could be increased by nearly 20 per cent, a value comparable to the current contribution of irrigation, from on-farm green…”
Adaptation to climate change through the choice of cropping system and sowing date in sub-Saharan Africa (2013, unknown): “water harvesting techniques (Kahinda et al., 2007; Rost et al., 2009), managing biodiversity, integrating animals into farming systems (Mortimore & Adams, 2001), diversifying livelihoods (Cooper et al.”
Adapting agriculture to climate change via sustainable irrigation: biophysical potentials and feedbacks (2022, background): “Soft-path solutions rely on small, modular, decentralized water management, namely water harvesting with small check dams, managed aquifer recharge by creating artificial streams and pond or local catchment systems, and better water management [96, 103, 104, 140, 141].”