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Hotspots of irrigation-related US greenhouse gas emissions from multiple sources

Nature Water volume 2, pages 837–847 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Irrigation effectively increases yields and buffers against intensifying climatic stressors to crop productivity but also produces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through several pathways including energy use for pumping (on farm and for interbasin water transfers), N2O emissions from increased denitrification under elevated soil moisture, and degassing of groundwater supersaturated in CO2. Despite irrigation’s climate adaptation potential, associated GHG emissions remain unquantified. Here we conduct a comprehensive, county-level assessment of US GHG emissions from these irrigation-related pathways, estimating that irrigation produces 18.9 MtCO2e annually (95% confidence interval 15.2–23.5 Mt), with 12.6 Mt from on-farm pumping, 1.1 Mt from pumping for interbasin transfers, 2.9 Mt from elevated N2O and 2.4 Mt from groundwater degassing. These emissions are highly spatially concentrated, revealing opportunities for geographically targeted and source-specific GHG mitigation actions. These findings enable strategic consideration of GHG emissions in decision-making associated with irrigation expansion for climate adaptation.

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Fig. 1: Total GHG emissions associated with irrigation in the USA by source.
Fig. 2: County-level distribution of total irrigation-related GHG emissions and spatial concentration by source.
Fig. 3: Source-specific maps of GHG emissions and their relative contribution.

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Data availability

County-level emissions estimates and associated CIs, broken down by emissions source and water source, are available as Supplementary Table 2. The data required to reproduce the figures and analyses presented in this manuscript are available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12552398 (ref. 37). The raw data used to calculate emissions estimates for groundwater degassing are available in the same repository. The raw data used to calculate emissions from individual interbasin transfer operators are available upon request to the corresponding author. The raw National Resources Inventory data underlying the N2O emissions model are confidential, and data access is regulated by the USDA.

Code availability

The code used to produce the figures and analyses presented in this manuscript is available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12552398 (ref. 37).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the many individuals at irrigation districts, utility companies and state and federal water management agencies who took the time to discuss their infrastructure and provide data for the interbasin transfer energy use component of this project. A.W.D. acknowledges support from the NSF Research Traineeship programme (DGE-1828902) and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE-006784). N.J.P. acknowledges support from Environmental Defense Fund and the Grantham Foundation. S.Z. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation under grant no. OAC-2209864. L.T.M. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation grant CBET-2144169 and the US Geological Survey under Grant/Cooperative Agreement No. 13612182-Virgina. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the US Geological Survey or the National Science Foundation. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the US Geological Survey or the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Avery W. Driscoll & Nathaniel D. Mueller

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Landon T. Marston & Md Abu Bakar Siddik

  3. Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Stephen M. Ogle, Shannon Spencer & Nathaniel D. Mueller

  4. Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Stephen M. Ogle & Shannon Spencer

  5. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Noah J. Planavsky

  6. Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, New Haven, CT, USA

    Noah J. Planavsky

  7. Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Shuang Zhang

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  1. Avery W. Driscoll
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Contributions

A.W.D. and N.D.M. conceived of the study and conducted the analysis, and A.W.D. led the writing of the initial draft. L.T.M. and M.A.B.S. contributed to conceptualization, data and analysis related to interbasin transfers, S.M.O. and S.S. contributed to conceptualization, data and analysis related to N2O emissions, and N.J.P. and S.Z. contributed to conceptualization, data and analysis related to groundwater degassing. All authors contributed to revising the manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Avery W. Driscoll.

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Nature Water thanks Bonnie McGill and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, Figs. 1–9, and Tables 1, 3 and 4.

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Supplementary Table 2

County-level emissions estimates and associated CIs broken down by emissions source and water source.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1–3

Statistical source data on sheet ‘Fig. 1’–‘Fig. 3’.

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Driscoll, A.W., Marston, L.T., Ogle, S.M. et al. Hotspots of irrigation-related US greenhouse gas emissions from multiple sources. Nat Water 2, 837–847 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00283-w

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