Water for Agriculture: Global Change and Geographic Perspectives on Research Challenges for the Future

Abstract

In writing about the future of humanity on Earth, E. O. Wilson (2002) used the metaphor of a “bottleneck” to characterize the current and forthcoming period of tremendous human demand on planetary resources. The combination of continuing growth in global population, the associated demand for food and fiber, and a relatively fixed water resource base results in a number of grand challenges that will be part of the hydro-social research landscape for the next 20 years (Graedel et al. 2001, Myers et al. 2007, Robertson and Swinton 2005). Complexity of these coupled human-environment problems (Liu et al. 2007) and uncertainty in human understanding and responses to our transition into and through the bottleneck provide many opportunities for scholars to contribute relevant information on our adapting journey toward planetary sustainability (Frieman et al. 1999). Research questions from earth system science, human-environment, and spatial perspectives that address uncertainties regarding future water availability, water quality, and how we will make use of water resources, are needed to help the world community find a way to support our growing planetary population. In the 2001 Envisioning report, the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Academies of Sciences identified 43 research issues (Table 1) among the three broad categories of water availability, water use, and water institutions, with some issues specific to the agricultural enterprise (Vaux, Jr. et al. 2001). A subsequent National Academies of Sciences assessment, discussing the role of research in addressing national water problems, indicated that research designs “should explicitly reflect the four themes of interdisciplinarity, broad systems context, uncertainty, and adaptation” (Vaux, Jr. et al. 2004: 6). Recognizing that humans are greatly modifying the global water system the Global Environmental Change Programmes established an international effort that 1) informs policy but is driven by science, 2) is global in scope, 3) is interdisciplinary and integrative, and 4) addresses multiple time scales (Vorosmarty et al. 2004). The three framing questions regarding the global water system address the relative size of both anthropogenic and environmental changes, linkages and feedbacks that materialize due to changes in the global water system, and resilience and adaptability of management strategies. An ecosystem services approach to address fresh water resource issues provided a perspective for suggesting twelve priorities for updating water policies for the 21st Century (Postel 2005). In addition, Wilbanks and Kates (1998) have indicated that investigation of the local expressions of global change is a key contribution that geographers can make. This paper provides an articulation of research priorities that address water and agriculture for the next two decades, based primarily on a perspective that is informed by aspects of human dimensions of global change and geographic thought.