Groundwater depletion will reduce cropping intensity in India

Groundwater depletion will reduce cropping intensity in India, and canal irrigation cannot fully substitute for this loss. Groundwater depletion is becoming a global threat to food security, yet the ultimate impacts of depletion on agricultural production and the efficacy of available adaptation strategies remain poorly quantified. We use high-resolution satellite and census data from India, the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, to quantify the impacts of groundwater depletion on cropping intensity, a crucial driver of agricultural production. Our results suggest that, given current depletion trends, cropping intensity may decrease by 20% nationwide and by 68% in groundwater-depleted regions. Even if surface irrigation delivery is increased as a supply-side adaptation strategy, which is being widely promoted by the Indian government, cropping intensity will decrease, become more vulnerable to interannual rainfall variability, and become more spatially uneven. We find that groundwater and canal irrigation are not substitutable and that additional adaptation strategies will be necessary to maintain current levels of production in the face of groundwater depletion.

[1]  M. Bierkens,et al.  Global depletion of groundwater resources , 2010 .

[2]  C. Müller,et al.  Constraints and potentials of future irrigation water availability on agricultural production under climate change , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[3]  T. Shah,et al.  Major insights from India's minor irrigation censuses: 1986-87 to 2006-07 , 2013 .

[4]  V. Gandhi,et al.  Groundwater Irrigation in India: Gains, Costs and Risks , 2009 .

[5]  S. K. Gupta,et al.  Water for India in 2050: first-order assessment of available options , 2004 .

[6]  Ruth S. DeFries,et al.  An Automated Approach to Map Winter Cropped Area of Smallholder Farms across Large Scales Using MODIS Imagery , 2017, Remote. Sens..

[7]  W. R. Thorpe,et al.  Livelihoods and agro-ecological gradients: A meso-level analysis in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, India , 2011 .

[8]  T Shah,et al.  Groundwater and human development: challenges and opportunities in livelihoods and environment. , 2005, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[9]  Melinda Smale,et al.  Crops that feed the world 10. Past successes and future challenges to the role played by wheat in global food security , 2013, Food Security.

[10]  Ajai Mishra,et al.  Proposed river-linking project of India: a boon or bane to nature , 2007 .

[11]  Tanya McCance,et al.  A review of the empirical evidence , 2016 .

[12]  Tushaar Shah,et al.  Climate change and groundwater: India’s opportunities for mitigation and adaptation , 2009 .

[13]  F. Ludwig,et al.  Future water resources for food production in five South Asian river basins and potential for adaptation--a modeling study. , 2013, The Science of the total environment.

[14]  M. Puma,et al.  Groundwater depletion embedded in international food trade , 2017, Nature.

[15]  P. Hazell,et al.  Government Spending, Growth and Poverty in Rural India , 2000 .

[16]  Vimal Mishra,et al.  Relative contribution of monsoon precipitation and pumping to changes in groundwater storage in India , 2017 .

[17]  Julian M. Alston,et al.  Agriculture in the Global Economy , 2014 .

[18]  P. Döll,et al.  Groundwater use for irrigation - a global inventory , 2010 .

[19]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India , 2009, Nature.

[20]  R. DeFries,et al.  Alternative cereals can improve water use and nutrient supply in India , 2018, Science Advances.

[21]  David B. Lobell,et al.  Using satellite data to identify the causes of and potential solutions for yield gaps in India’s Wheat Belt , 2017 .

[22]  M. A. Hanjra,et al.  Irrigation and poverty alleviation: review of the empirical evidence , 2004 .

[23]  Isha Ray.  Farm-level Incentives for Irrigation Efficiency: Some Lessons from an Indian Canal , 2002 .

[24]  N. Dubash.  Tubewell capitalism: groundwater development and agrarian change in Gujarat. , 2002 .

[25]  RamFishman,et al.  Can improved agricultural water use efficiency save India’s groundwater? , 2015 .

[26]  Upmanu Lall,et al.  Over‐extraction from shallow bedrock versus deep alluvial aquifers: Reliability versus sustainability considerations for India's groundwater irrigation , 2011 .

[27]  Wim G.M. Bastiaanssen,et al.  A global benchmark map of water productivity for rainfed and irrigated wheat , 2010 .

[28]  Jikun Huang,et al.  Irrigation, Poverty and Inequality in Rural China , 2005 .

[29]  Douglas H. Wrenn,et al.  Invisible water, visible impact: groundwater use and Indian agriculture under climate change , 2016 .

[30]  Mark A. Friedl,et al.  Mapping Asian Cropping Intensity With MODIS , 2014, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.

[31]  A. Gulati,et al.  Investment, subsidies, and pro‐poor growth in rural India , 2008 .

[32]  Ram Fishman,et al.  Can improved agricultural water use efficiency save India’s groundwater? , 2015 .

[33]  Mark R. Rosenzweig,et al.  Agricultural Productivity Growth, Rural Economic Diversity, and Economic Reforms: India, 1970–2000* , 2004, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[34]  Jeffrey C. Williams,et al.  Locational asymmetry and the potential for cooperation on a canal , 2002 .

[35]  T. Shah.  Challenges and Opportunities in Livelihoods and Environment , 2005 .

[36]  D. Headey,et al.  Agriculture, Income and Nutrition Linkages in India: Findings from a Nationally Representative Survey , 2013 .