The global limits of sustainable irrigation as an adaptation to climate change
Abstract
Abstract Water underpins agricultural adaptation to climate change, yet irrigation accounts for nearly 70% of global freshwater withdrawals. Whether water systems can sustain further irrigation expansion under climate change remains uncertain. We quantify when irrigation crosses soft and hard adaptation limits under alternative climate futures by 2050. Using an integrated modeling framework linking crop cultivations, hydrology, land use and trade, we evaluate future contributions and sustainability of irrigation across water, land and economic indicators. Under low warming, irrigation stabilizes global production while withdrawals decline by 17%, and blue water use efficiency improves by 25%, functioning as an efficiency-enhancing adaptation. As warming intensifies, irrigation shifts from efficiency to dependency: sustaining production increasingly requires rising withdrawals, with efficiency declining by 27–32% in major producing regions. Climate change also weakens global trade-related blue water savings, reinforcing unequal virtual water exchanges between the Global South and North. Water availability, not agronomy alone, ultimately defines the limits of irrigation-based adaptation.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Climate Change Impacts on Marine Ecosystems
- Assisted Gene Flow to Facilitate Local Adaptation to Climate Change
- Climate Change Effects on Plant Disease: Genomes to Ecosystems
- Biodiversity and Climate Change: Integrating Evolutionary and Ecological Responses of Species and Communities
- A systematic review of climate change education: giving children and young people a ‘voice’ and a ‘hand’ in redressing climate change
- Global Monsoon Dynamics and Climate Change
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.