Publication: Salt of the Earth: Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity
Date
2020-02
ISSN
Published
2020-02
Author(s)
Abstract
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.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Russ, Jason; Zaveri, Esha; Damania, Richard; Desbureaux, Sebastien; Escurra, Jorge; Rodella, Aude-Sophie. 2020. Salt of the Earth: Quantifying the Impact of Water Salinity on Global Agricultural Productivity. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9144. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33320 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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