Climate-driven interannual variability of water scarcity in food production: a global analysis

Abstract

Abstract. Interannual climatic and hydrologic variability has been substantial during the past decades in many regions. While climate variability and its impacts on precipitation and soil moisture have been rather intensively studied, less is known on its impacts on freshwater availability and further implications for global food production. In this paper we quantify effects of hydroclimatic variability on global "green" and "blue" water availability and demand in agriculture. Analysis is based on climate forcing data for the past 30 yr with demography, diet composition and land use fixed to constant reference conditions. We thus assess how observed interannual hydroclimatic variability impacts on the ability of food production units (FPUs) to produce a given diet for their inhabitants, here focused on a benchmark for hunger alleviation (3000 kilocalories per capita per day, with 80% vegetal food and 20% animal products). We applied the LPJmL vegetation and hydrology model to calculate spatially explicitly the variation in green-blue water availability and the water requirements to produce that very diet. An FPU was considered water scarce if its water availability was not sufficient to produce the diet (neglecting trade from elsewhere, i.e. assuming food self-sufficiency). We found that altogether 24% of the global population lives in areas under chronic scarcity (i.e. water is scarce every year) while an additional 19% live under occasional water scarcity (i.e. water is scarce in some years). Of these 2.6 billion people under some degree of scarcity, 55% would have to rely on international trade to reach the reference diet while for 24% domestic trade would be enough (assuming present cropland extent and management). For the remaining 21% of population under scarcity, local food storage and/or intermittent trade would be enough secure the reference diet over the occasional dry years.