Groundwater Scarcity: Implications for U.S. Agricultural Production and Global Food Security

The World Bank estimates that a fifth of agricultural production takes place on irrigated lands that provide nearly half of the world’s food and that approximately 40% of the water used globally for agricultural irrigation is groundwater. Alarmingly, satellite data and other monitoring tools show that groundwater supplies in many of the world’s key agricultural regions are shrinking at a time when global food needs are increasing. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will host a discussion of experts on Tuesday, June 8, 2021 from 3:00 to 5:30 pm ET via Zoom to explore the implications of these findings for the food supply, and to consider what role the National Academies can play to catalyze measures to avoid a future crisis.

The public is invited to join the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Water Science and Technology Board to hear the perspectives of scientists who are quantifying groundwater supplies and representatives of organizations addressing water scarcity on what the National Academies’ might do to bring awareness and solutions to the problem.

Brief presentations from:

• Matt Rodell, NASA Goddard, GRACE data and global freshwater availability

• Bridget Scanlon, University of Texas, GRACE data and U.S. groundwater stocks

• Megan Konar, University of Illinois, Mapping virtual water flows through food

• Debra Perrone, UC Santa Barbara, Implications of an analysis of well water levels and depths

Perspectives from:

• Alex Tait, National Geographic Society

• Kirsten James, Ceres

• Charlie Iceland, World Resources Institute

• Jill Deines, Stanford and NASA Harvest

• Mike Strobel, USDA/NRCS National Climate and Water Center

• Karen Ross, California Department of Food and Agriculture