Abstract
In recent decades, China’s crop production experienced a spatial shift, and this shift may significantly influence the national water resources due to the geographical mismatch between water resources and cropland. By applying the widely applied AquaCrop model, this study quantified the impact of grain crop (rice and maize) expansion in northeastern China on the country’s water resources. We found that the production of rice and maize increased by 60% and 43%, respectively, in the northeast, whereas the water scarcity-footprint (WSF) increased by 200% and 125%. Using sensitivity analysis, we found that the increase in the WSF was mainly caused by the increase in regional water scarcity, as reflected by a water scarcity index, and by the increase in production. To alleviate regional water scarcity, crop expansion into regions that experience high water stress should be constrained. A detailed reassessment of this situation is urgently needed.
Highlights
China is facing the dual challenge of satisfying a growing food demand while reducing its impact on the environment [1,2]
Based on the one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis, we found that the change in production (P1) and water scarcity index (WSI) (P2) substantially increased the total water scarcity-footprint (WSF) of the rice, whereas the change in the irrigation intensity decreased the total WSF of the rice (Figure 4a)
This study demonstrated that crop expansion can cause a substantial impact on regional water resources
Summary
China is facing the dual challenge of satisfying a growing food demand while reducing its impact on the environment [1,2]. China has remarkably increased its agricultural production, which created the so-called “Miracle in China”: using 7% of the world’s arable land to feed 22% of the world’s population. China’s food production is undergoing a dramatic spatial shift along with its social and economic change [2,3,4]. Both the increase and shift of agricultural production incurred substantial environmental costs [2,5], especially for water consumption [6,7,8], due to the geographical mismatch between water availability and cropland. Previous studies focused on the impact factors from this land use change and the related change in agricultural productivity [10,11,12]
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