Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity

Salinity in surface waters is on the rise throughout much of the world. Many factors contribute to this change, including increased water extraction, poor irrigation management, and sea-level rise. To date no study has attempted to quantify the imp...

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Main Authors:	Russ, Jason, Zaveri, Esha, Damania, Richard, Desbureaux, Sebastien, Escurra, Jorge, Rodella, Aude-Sophie
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	SALINITY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY WATER QUALITY FOOD SECURITY CROP YIELD
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/284971581348972217/Salt-of-the-Earth-Quantifying-the-Impact-of-Water-Salinity-on-Global-Agricultural-Productivity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33320

id	okr-10986-33320
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-333202022-09-20T00:13:26Z Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity Russ, Jason Zaveri, Esha Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Escurra, Jorge Rodella, Aude-Sophie SALINITY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY WATER QUALITY FOOD SECURITY CROP YIELD Salinity in surface waters is on the rise throughout much of the world. Many factors contribute to this change, including increased water extraction, poor irrigation management, and sea-level rise. To date no study has attempted to quantify the impacts on global food production. This paper develops a plausibly causal model to test the sensitivity of global and regional agricultural productivity to changes in water salinity. To do so, it utilizes several local and global data sets on water quality and agricultural productivity and a model that isolates the impact of exogenous changes in water salinity on yields. The analysis trains a machine-learning model to predict salinity globally, to simulate average global food losses over 2000-13. These losses are found to be high, in the range of the equivalent of 124 trillion kilocalories, or enough to feed more than 170 million people every day, each year. Global maps building on these results show that pockets of high losses occur on all continents, but the losses can be expected to be particularly problematic in regions already experiencing malnutrition challenges. 2020-02-13T16:44:56Z 2020-02-13T16:44:56Z 2020-02 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/284971581348972217/Salt-of-the-Earth-Quantifying-the-Impact-of-Water-Salinity-on-Global-Agricultural-Productivity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33320 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9144 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	SALINITY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY WATER QUALITY FOOD SECURITY CROP YIELD
spellingShingle	SALINITY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY WATER QUALITY FOOD SECURITY CROP YIELD Russ, Jason Zaveri, Esha Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Escurra, Jorge Rodella, Aude-Sophie Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9144
description	Salinity in surface waters is on the rise throughout much of the world. Many factors contribute to this change, including increased water extraction, poor irrigation management, and sea-level rise. To date no study has attempted to quantify the impacts on global food production. This paper develops a plausibly causal model to test the sensitivity of global and regional agricultural productivity to changes in water salinity. To do so, it utilizes several local and global data sets on water quality and agricultural productivity and a model that isolates the impact of exogenous changes in water salinity on yields. The analysis trains a machine-learning model to predict salinity globally, to simulate average global food losses over 2000-13. These losses are found to be high, in the range of the equivalent of 124 trillion kilocalories, or enough to feed more than 170 million people every day, each year. Global maps building on these results show that pockets of high losses occur on all continents, but the losses can be expected to be particularly problematic in regions already experiencing malnutrition challenges.
format	Working Paper
author	Russ, Jason Zaveri, Esha Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Escurra, Jorge Rodella, Aude-Sophie
author_facet	Russ, Jason Zaveri, Esha Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Escurra, Jorge Rodella, Aude-Sophie
author_sort	Russ, Jason
title	Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
title_short	Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
title_full	Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
title_fullStr	Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
title_full_unstemmed	Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
title_sort	salt of the earth : quantifying the impact of water salinity on global agricultural productivity
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/284971581348972217/Salt-of-the-Earth-Quantifying-the-Impact-of-Water-Salinity-on-Global-Agricultural-Productivity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33320
_version_	1764478480633823232

Salt of the Earth : Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity

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