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  • Review Article
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Irrigation in the Earth system

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, pages 435–453 (2023)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 18 October 2023

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Abstract

Irrigation accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals and ~90% of consumptive water use, driving myriad Earth system impacts. In this Review, we summarize how irrigation currently impacts key components of the Earth system. Estimates suggest that more than 3.6 million km2 of currently irrigated land, with hot spots in the intensively cultivated US High Plains, California Central Valley, Indo-Gangetic Basin and northern China. Process-based models estimate that ~2,700 ± 540 km3 irrigation water is withdrawn globally each year, broadly consistent with country-reported values despite these estimates embedding substantial uncertainties. Expansive irrigation has modified surface energy balance and biogeochemical cycling. A shift from sensible to latent heat fluxes, and resulting land–atmosphere feedbacks, generally reduce regional growing season surface temperatures by ~1–3 °C. Irrigation can ameliorate temperature extremes in some regions, but conversely exacerbates moist heat stress. Modelled precipitation responses are more varied, with some intensive cropping regions exhibiting suppressed local precipitation but enhanced precipitation downstream owing to atmospheric circulation interactions. Additionally, irrigation could enhance cropland carbon uptake; however, it can also contribute to elevated methane fluxes in rice systems and mobilize nitrogen loading to groundwater. Cross-disciplinary, integrative research efforts can help advance understanding of these irrigation–Earth system interactions, and identify and reduce uncertainties, biases and limitations.

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Fig. 1: Global irrigated areas.
Fig. 2: Global irrigation water withdrawals and consumption estimates.
Fig. 3: Irrigation–Earth system interactions.
Fig. 4: Irrigation–climate impacts over North America.
Fig. 5: Projected changes in irrigated area.
Fig. 6: Potential for sustainable irrigation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Aspen Global Change Institute and D. Lawrence for their support in this topic and our discussions. H.K. acknowledges the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant Funded by the Korea Government (MSIT) (2021H1D3A2A03097768) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) as a part of the Belmont Forum under the grant number JPMJBF2101. Y.P. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (Awards #: 1752729 and 2127643). L.B., C.M., W.D., and L.Z., acknowledge support from the European Space Agency projects IRRIGATION+ (contract number 4000129870/20/I-NB) and 4DMED-Hydrology (4000136272/21/I-EF). P.V. and A.D.J. acknowledge support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, as part of research in the MultiSector Dynamics, Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program. W.T. acknowledges the DLR/BMBF (DE, grant no. 01LS1905A), NWO (NL), the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and the European Union for supporting the project ‘LAnd MAnagement for CLImate Mitigation and Adaptation’ (LAMACLIMA) (grant agreement no. 300478), which is part of ERA4CS, an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate. N.D.M. and L.S. acknowledge support from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FF-NIA19-0000000003). M.H.L acknowledges support from NSTC Grant 110-2628-M-002-004-MY4 and 111-2111-M-002-019. R. M. acknowledges support from an NSF Grant AGS-1853390. T.Y. is supported by MEXT-Program for the advanced studies of climate change projection (SENTAN) Grant Number JPMXD0722681344. J.J. was supported by the NASA GISS Climate Impacts Group and the Open Philanthropy Project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Sonali McDermid

  2. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

    Sonali McDermid, Jonas Jägermeyr & Benjamin I. Cook

  3. Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Mallika Nocco

  4. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Patricia Lawston-Parker & Joe Santanello

  5. University of Maryland, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, College Park, MD, USA

    Patricia Lawston-Parker

  6. Department of Environment, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Jessica Keune

  7. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Yadu Pokhrel

  8. School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Meha Jain

  9. Columbia University, Climate School, New York, NY, USA

    Jonas Jägermeyr

  10. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Jonas Jägermeyr

  11. National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR-IRPI), Perugia, Italy

    Luca Brocca & Christian Massari

  12. Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Andrew D. Jones & Pouya Vahmani

  13. Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Andrew D. Jones

  14. Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Wim Thiery & Yi Yao

  15. Department of Earth & Environment, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Andrew Bell

  16. Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Liang Chen

  17. Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Wouter Dorigo & Luca Zappa

  18. Center for Climate Change Adaptation, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

    Naota Hanasaki

  19. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Scott Jasechko

  20. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Min-Hui Lo

  21. High Plains Regional Climate Center, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Rezaul Mahmood

  22. Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India

    Vimal Mishra

  23. Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Nathaniel D. Mueller

  24. Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Nathaniel D. Mueller & Lindsey Sloat

  25. Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Dev Niyogi

  26. Cockrell School of Engineering, UT Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Dev Niyogi

  27. Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Sam S. Rabin

  28. Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Sam S. Rabin, Fei Chen & Danica Lombardozzi

  29. Land and Carbon Lab, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Lindsey Sloat

  30. Center for Desert Agriculture, Climate and Livability Initiative, Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Yoshihide Wada

  31. Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea

    Hyungjun Kim & Yusuke Satoh

  32. LMD-IPSL, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Ecole Polytechniqu, Paris, France

    Jan Polcher

  33. Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Dongryeol Ryu

  34. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Sonia Seneviratne

  35. School of the Environment, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA

    Deepti Singh

  36. Earth System Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba,, Japan

    Tokuta Yokohata

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  1. Sonali McDermid
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  2. Mallika Nocco
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  3. Patricia Lawston-Parker
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  4. Jessica Keune
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Contributions

M.N., P.L.-P., J.K., Y.P., M.J., J.J., L.C., N.D.M. and S.Mc.D. researched data for the article. M.N., P.L.-P., J.K., Y.P., M.J., J.J., L.B., C.M., A.J., P.V., W.T., A.B., W.D., S.J., M.-H.L., R.M., V.M., N.D.M., D.N., S.S.R., L.S., Y.W., F.C., B.I.C., H.K., D.L., J.P., D.R., J.S., S.S., D.S., T.Y. and S.Mc.D. contributed substantially to discussion of the content. M.N., P.L.-P., J.K., Y.P., M.J., J.J., L.B., C.M., A.J., P.V., W.T., Y.Y., A.B., W.D., N.H., M.-H.L., N.D.M., L.S., L.Z. and S.Mc.D. wrote the article. M.N., P.L.-P., J.K., Y.P., M.J., J.J., A.J., P.V., W.T., Y.Y., L.C., W.D., S.J., R.M., V.M., D.N., S.S.R., Y.W., L.Z., J.P., D.R., J.S., Y.S. and S.Mc.D. reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sonali McDermid.

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Nature Reviews Earth & Environment thanks Stefan Siebert, Ruby Leung, Wanxue Zhu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Related links

Central Ground Water Board: http://cgwb.gov.in/

Directorate of Economics And Statistics: https://eands.dacnet.nic.in/

FAOSTAT: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home

Long-term agricultural research sites: https://ltar.ars.usda.gov/data/data-dashboards/

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics: https://www.pbs.gov.pk/

UN FAO: https://www.fao.org/3/y3918e/y3918e00.htm#TopOfPage

USDA: https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/

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McDermid, S., Nocco, M., Lawston-Parker, P. et al. Irrigation in the Earth system. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 435–453 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00438-5

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