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Mitigation efforts will not fully alleviate the increase in water scarcity occurrence probability in wheat-producing areas.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Feng, Song 
Semenov, Mikhail A 
Kersebaum, Kurt Christian  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3679-8427

Abstract

Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe water scarcity (SWS) events, which negatively affect rain-fed crops such as wheat, a key source of calories and protein for humans. Here, we develop a method to simultaneously quantify SWS over the world's entire wheat-growing area and calculate the probabilities of multiple/sequential SWS events for baseline and future climates. Our projections show that, without climate change mitigation (representative concentration pathway 8.5), up to 60% of the current wheat-growing area will face simultaneous SWS events by the end of this century, compared to 15% today. Climate change stabilization in line with the Paris Agreement would substantially reduce the negative effects, but they would still double between 2041 and 2070 compared to current conditions. Future assessments of production shocks in food security should explicitly include the risk of severe, prolonged, and near-simultaneous droughts across key world wheat-producing areas.

Description

Keywords

Climate Change, Crops, Agricultural, Food Supply, Geography, Global Warming, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Seasons, Triticum, Water

Journal Title

Sci Adv

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2375-2548
2375-2548

Volume Title

5

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)