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1. Water shortage risks from perennial crop expansion in California’s Central Valley

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4035  

   Mall, Natalie K. ; Herman, Jonathan D. ( October 2019 , Environmental Research Letters)

   California’s Central Valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. Its high-value fruit, vegetable, and nut crops rely on surface water imports from a vast network of reservoirs and canals as well as groundwater, which has been substantially overdrafted to support irrigation. The region has undergone a shift to perennial (tree and vine) crops in recent decades, which has increased water demand amid a series of severe droughts and emerging regulations on groundwater pumping. This study quantifies the expansion of perennial crops in the Tulare Lake Basin, the southern region of the Central Valley with limited natural water availability. A gridded crop type dataset is compiled on a 1 mi²spatial resolution from a historical database of pesticide permits over the period 1974–2016 and validated against aggregated county-level data. This spatial dataset is then analyzed by irrigation district, the primary spatial scale at which surface water supplies are determined, to identify trends in planting decisions and agricultural water demand over time. Perennial crop acreage has nearly tripled over this period, and currently accounts for roughly 60% of planted area and 80% of annual revenue. These trends show little relationship with water availability and have been driven primarily bymore »market demand. From this data, we focus on the increasing minimum irrigation needs each year to sustain perennial crops. Results indicate that under a range of plausible future regulations on groundwater pumping ranging from 10% to 50%, water supplies may fail to consistently meet demands, increasing losses by up to 30% of annual revenues. More broadly, the datasets developed in this work will support the development of dynamic models of the integrated water-agriculture system under uncertain climate and regulatory changes to understand the combined impacts of water supply shortages and intensifying irrigation demand.

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2. Potential influence of climate and anthropogenic variables on water security using blue and green water scarcity, Falkenmark index, and freshwater provision indicator

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.09.012  

   Veettil, A.V ; Mishra, A.K. ( December 2018 , Journal of environmental management)

   Land use change and climate variability have significantly altered the regional water cycle over the last century thereby affecting water security at a local to regional scale. Therefore, it is important to investigate how the climate, land use change, and water demand potentially influence the water security by applying the concept of water footprint. An integrated hydrological modeling framework using SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model was developed by considering both anthropogenic (e.g. land use change, water demand) and climatic factors to quantify the spatio-temporal variability of water security indicators such as blue water scarcity, green water scarcity, Falkenmark index, and freshwater provision indicators in Savannah River Basin (SRB). The SRB witnesses a significant change in land use land cover (e.g. forest cover, urban area) as well as water demand (e.g. irrigation, livestock production). Overall our results reveal that, SRB witnessed a significant decrease in blue water due to the climate variability indicating that the precipitation has more control over the blue water resources. Whereas, green water was more sensitive to changes in land use pattern. In addition, the magnitude of various water security indicators are different within each county suggesting that water scarcity are controlled by various factorsmore »within a region. An integrated assessment of water footprint, environmental flow, anthropogenic factors, and climatic variables can provide useful information on the rising (how and where) of water related risk to human and ecological health.« less
3. Environmental Impact Assessment of Agricultural Production Using LCA: A Review

   https://doi.org/10.3390/cli9110164  

   Alhashim, Rahmah ; Deepa, Raveendranpillai ; Anandhi, Aavudai ( November 2021 , Climate)

   Life cycle impact assessment (LCA) provides a better understanding of the energy, water, and material input and evaluates any production system’s output impacts. LCA has been carried out on various crops and products across the world. Some countries, however, have none or only a few studies. Here, we present the results of a literature review, following the PRISMA protocol, of what has been done in LCA to help stakeholders in these regions to understand the environmental impact at different stages of a product. The published literature was examined using the Google Scholar database to synthesize LCA research on agricultural activities, and 74 studies were analyzed. The evaluated papers are extensively studied in order to comprehend the various impact categories involved in LCA. The study reveals that tomatoes and wheat were the major crops considered in LCA. The major environmental impacts, namely, human toxicity potential and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential, were the major focus. Furthermore, the most used impact methods were CML, ISO, and IPCC. It was also found that studies were most often conducted in the European sector since most models and databases are suited for European agri-food products. The literature review did not focus on a specific region or amore »crop. Consequently, many studies appeared while searching using the keywords. Notwithstanding such limitations, this review provides a valuable reference point for those practicing LCA.« less
4. A Cloud-Based Evaluation of the National Land Cover Database to Support New Mexico’s Food–Energy–Water Systems

   https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12111830  

   Gedefaw, Melakeneh G. ; Geli, Hatim M.E. ; Yadav, Kamini ; Zaied, Ashraf J. ; Finegold, Yelena ; Boykin, Kenneth G. ( June 2020 , Remote Sensing)

   Accurate estimation of land use/land cover (LULC) areas is critical, especially over the semi-arid environments of the southwestern United States where water shortage and loss of rangelands and croplands are affecting the food production systems. This study was conducted within the context of providing an improved understanding of New Mexico’s (NM’s) Food–Energy–Water Systems (FEWS) at the county level. The main goal of this analysis was to evaluate the most important LULC classes for NM’s FEWS by implementing standardized protocols of accuracy assessment and providing bias-corrected area estimates of these classes. The LULC data used in the study was based on National Land Cover Database (NLCD) legacy maps of 1992, 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016. The analysis was conducted using the cloud-based geospatial processing and modeling tools available from System for Earth Observation Data Access, Processing, and Analysis for Land Monitoring (SEPAL) of the Food and Agricultural Organization. Accuracy assessment, uncertainty analysis, and bias-adjusted area estimates were evaluated by collecting a total of 11,428 reference samples using the Open Foris Collect Earth tool that provided access to high spatial and temporal resolution images available in Google Earth. The reference samples were allocated using a stratified random sampling approach. The results showedmore »an overall accuracy that ranged from 71%–100% in all six study counties. The user’s and producer’s accuracy of most LULC classes were about or above 80%. The obtained bias-adjusted area estimates were higher than those based on pixel counting. The bias-adjusted area estimates simultaneously showed decreasing and increasing trends in grassland and shrubland, respectively in four counties that include Curry, Roosevelt, Lea, and Eddy during the 1992–2016 period. Doña Ana county experienced increasing and decreasing trends in grassland and shrubland areas, respectively. San Juan county experienced decreasing trends in both grassland and shrubland areas. Cultivated cropland areas showed decreasing trends in three counties in southeast NM that rely on groundwater resources including Curry, Roosevelt, and Lea. Similarly, cultivated cropland areas showed increasing trends in the other three counties that rely on surface water or conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources including San Juan, Doña Ana, and Eddy. The use of SEPAL allowed for efficient assessment and production of more accurate bias-adjusted area estimates compared to using pixel counting. Providing such information can help in understanding the behavior of NM’s food production systems including rangelands and croplands, better monitoring and characterizing NM’s FEWS, and evaluating their behavior under changing environmental and climatic conditions. More effort is needed to evaluate the ability of the NLCD data and other similar products to provide more accurate LULC area estimates at local scales.« less
5. Global Warming and Toxicity Impacts: Peanuts in Georgia, USA Using Life Cycle Assessment

   https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063671  

   Alhashim, Rahmah ; Anandhi, Aavudai ( March 2022 , Sustainability)

   Fertilizers and pesticides have been widely used in agriculture production, causing polluted soil, water, and atmosphere. This study aims to quantify air emissions from pesticides and fertilizers applied for peanut production in Georgia during selected years (1991, 1999, 2004, 2013, and 2018). Specifically, the oral and dermal potential impacts from pesticide emissions and the global warming potential (GWP) impact from fertilizers to air were investigated. This study followed the ISO 14040 series standards for life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to assess six active ingredients (AIs) (2,4-DB, Bentazon, Chlorothalonil, Ethalfluralin, Paraquat, and Pendimethalin) and one greenhouse gas (nitrous oxide N2O). Their physical and chemical characteristics and the temporal scales greatly influenced the oral and dermal toxicity impacts. According to the low values obtained for Henry’s law (KH) and vapor pressure (VP), 2,4-dichlorophenoxy butanoic (DB), Pendimethalin, and Chlorothalonil have a higher impact on the continental air scale. The effect factor (EF) from oral exposure was higher in 2,4-DB, Bentazon, and Pendimethalin than dermal exposure, according to the relatively low lethal dose (LD50) for oral exposure, while the EF of Ethalfluralin and Chlorothalonil was the same for oral and dermal exposure according to their similar LD50.