The Impact of Water Scarcity on Food, Deforestation and Bioenergy

Niven Winchester, Kirby Ledvina, Kenneth Strzepek and John Reilly

No 332736, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: We evaluate the impact of water scarcity on food prices, deforestation and bioenergy production under a global carbon policy. The analysis develops a representation of irrigated land in the MIT Economic Project and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model, a global economy-wide model of energy and food production, land-use change and greenhouse gas emissions. The representation relies on the specification of irrigable land supply curves, which are built on detailed spatial estimates of water availability, and the costs of improving irrigation efficiency and increasing water storage. Simulating the model under a global carbon price, as there are endogenous improvements in irrigation infrastructure, we find that water availability has a small impact on food, deforestation and bioenergy outcomes. We also find that, relative to when irrigated land is not represented, heterogeneity in irrigation responses result in livestock production relocating from more land-intensive regions to less land-intensive regions, which leads to less deforestation.

Keywords: Resource/Energy; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332736

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