Global greenhouse gas co-benefits of US irrigated agriculture

What is it about?

Irrigation increases crop productivity, which can reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture and therefore reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land use change. In this paper, we mapped the productivity benefits of US irrigation at the county scale, used an economic model to estimate irrigation's impacts on global agricultural land use, and then quantified the associated greenhouse gas emissions benefits.

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Photo by Lumin Osity on Unsplash

Photo by Lumin Osity on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Food systems produce roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, mostly through on-farm management and land use change. As we work to reduce food system emissions, it's essential to consider both direct, on-farm emissions and global, indirect impacts on land use change through productivity shifts. Although discussion around indirect land use change has been increasing, rigorous quantification tied to specific management practices remains uncommon. We address this question for US irrigation, which is a widespread practice and promising climate change adaptation strategy. Moreover, we provide a transferrable modeling pipeline for assessing net GHG impacts that can be useful for future work on other agricultural management practices.

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