_smoke on the Water: Freshwater Shortage Will Double Climate
Change’s Impact on Agriculture (Study)

-- a _kt75 | reprint

_NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here





_Experts expect global warming to have a negative impact on crop yields, but shortages of water for irrigation could make for double the trouble, according to a study published yesterday.

As described in ScienceDaily, “given the present trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural models estimate that climate change will directly reduce food production from maize, soybeans, wheat and rice by as much as 43 percent by the end of the 21st century. But hydrological models looking at the effect of warming climate on freshwater supplies project further agricultural losses, due to the reversion of 20 to 60 million hectares of currently irrigated fields back to rain-fed crops.”

The study’s lead author, Joshua Elliot, said the analysis is the first of its kind to feature an in-depth comparison of agricultural and hydrological models, which resulted in dramatically different results from other research.
“It’s a huge effect, and an effect that’s basically on the same order of magnitude as the direct effect of climate change,” Elliott, a research scientist with the Computation Institute’s Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP), Argonne National Laboratory, is quoted as saying. “So the effect of limited irrigation availability in some regions could end up doubling the effect of climate change.”
The “good” news, if any, is that some areas will most likely see more precipitation, which could mitigate some of the effects of shortages, the study says. Read on ...

Popular posts from this blog

Goodbye _kt75 | mirror. Hello _progress | M
- a status note -

Image
  note (by W. Scharnhorst ) As of 1st July 2015 _progress | M will replace _kt75 | mirror, the latter will as of than to be further developed nor will any content be published via that platform. Already today, you can visit _progress | M via http://progress-m.blogspot.ch . There are many improvements compared with _kt75 | mirror, e.g.: full responsive design panel/mobile reader mode (recommended if you want to get the full content of an article redesigned download area ( http://progress-m.blogspot.ch/p/downloads.html ) redesigned fonts to facilitate readability There are some more features currently still in the development mode, therefore they are not yet available, e.g.: embedding related content (via the content bar in the panel£/mobile reader mode) opportunities to allow for 3rd party actions (user customisation) Overall the development of _progress | M is part an entire blog development package. Other parts of development include: u....
Read more

Shared Water Resources in Western Asia: an Inventory Approach

Image
-- a _kt75 | reprint NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here The sharing of water resources has been an influential feature affecting life, society and development in the Arabian Peninsula , the Mashrek and Mesopotamia for millennia. Historically, communities living in these arid and semi-arid regions always shared the water of rivers, springs and wadis, although this was more out of necessity than idealism. Water resources were traditionally managed at the local level, with tensions emerging between Bedouins, shepherds, pastoralists and growing urban centres. Water management and irrigation schemes – such as the underground aqueducts or falaj networks found in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – sustained different communal needs for dozens of centuries, while the marshes of Mesopotamia, the Tigris floodplain and the Jordan River Valley were cultivated and sustained successive civilizations since earliest of times. Hills...
Read more

_moneytalks IV
How the Market Can Mitigate Water Shortages in the American West

Image
-- a _kt75 | reprint _NEW: explore all _kt75 | publications via the news db... and leave your comments here The American West has a long tradition of conflict over water . But after fifteen years of drought across the region, it is no longer simply conflict: it is crisis. In the face of unprecedented declines in reservoir storage and groundwater reserves throughout the West, we focus in this discussion paper on a set of policies that could contribute to a lasting solution: using market forces to facilitate the movement of water resources and to mitigate the risk of water shortages.  We begin by reviewing key dimensions of this problem: the challenges of population and economic growth, the environmental stresses from overuse of common water resources, the risk of increasing water-supply volatility, and the historical disjunction that has developed between and among rural and urban water users regarding the ...
Read more