With land grabs comes competition for water -- and local farmers are
likely to lose

Date:
March 21, 2022
Source:
University of Notre Dame
Summary:
New research shows large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs)
in Ethiopia's Omo River region could threaten water resources
downstream to the local farmers and Indigenous populations living
along the Omo -- just one example of how a decades-long 'global
land rush' could intensify water scarcity around the world.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Water from Ethiopia's Omo River, which flows for 472 miles along the
country's southwest side, has helped sustain the livelihood of tribal populations for hundreds of years. Human rights organizations have
estimated 200,000 people from various tribes in the region rely on the
Omo's water for cattle and to grow crops like sorghum and maize.


==========================================================================
But new research shows large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) in the
region could threaten water resources downstream to the local farmers
and Indigenous populations living along the Omo -- just one example of
how a decades-long "global land rush" could intensify water scarcity
around the world.

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame, the Polytechnic University of Milan, the University of California, Berkeley, Colorado State University,
the University of Delaware and Vrije University Amsterdam studied 160
land deals made between 2005 and 2015 across Europe, South America, Africa
and Asia for the study, published in Nature Communications. Hydrological
models used to simulate future cultivation of those deals found close
to two-thirds of those deals are unsustainable.

"The idea of this study was to quantify how many of these deals, how much
of this land acquisition would cause competition and water grabbing -- and
how much is actually beneficial. We found that the majority of those land acquisitions actually cause competition," said Marc Mu"ller, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and
Earth Sciences at Notre Dame and co-author of the study. "We looked at
the crops being planted and the water needed for those crops, and what
we found is that if the acquisitions go as planned, if these crops and
the area of irrigated land changes the way investors have said they plan
to change it -- there's not enough water for everybody." More than 220
million acres of land in middle-income and developing countries were
purchased through LSLAs to increase production of local staple crops
and to produce export-bound crops such as wheat and those that could be utilized for biofuel, such as palm oil and sugar cane.

"You need a lot of water to produce these foods," said Mu"ller. Some of
that need is met by rainfall, or green water. When green water isn't
enough to meet the needs of the crop, the next step is supplemental
irrigation using blue water, or water that can be redirected or taken
from one source and used elsewhere. But supplemental irrigation
is unsustainable when it depletes blue water resources -- leaving
independently owned farmlands and local populations hurting.



==========================================================================
"If you have blue water scarcity -- if there is not enough water to
irrigate after the land acquisition -- that creates competition with
local water users," Mu"ller said. "All the communities that rely on
the same water -- now they don't have enough for their own crops."
An outcome those living along the Omo River could very well face.

As part of the study, Mu"ller and his co-authors closely examined
development of two land deals, simulating the need for surface water
irrigation in Western Ethiopia, and found increases in water scarcity downstream. "That was surprising," Mu"ller said. "If you withdraw the
water from the system upstream, it clearly affects how much stream
flow is available downstream. All the people along the river that rely
on that water -- they will feel it. There will be less water available
for use. You can see the broad effects downstream. It goes way further
than I actually expected." The study highlights how the globalization
of land and food systems can put additional stress on water resources
and limit water access at the local level.

"By increasing how much water is necessary at any given locations, these
deals shift the balance and water becomes very limited locally," said
Mu"ller. "One of the arguments of this project is, are these agricultural transitions from small-holder, traditional farming to large, mechanized agriculture beneficial? You want to determine when evaluating the
impact of an impending deal whether the benefits are going to outweigh
the costs." The research is part of a series of studies the team has
done to examine the impact of LSLAs on a broad scale, identifying global patterns and observations.

A previous study focused on the impacts on food security.

Mu"ller is an affiliated faculty member of Notre Dame's Environmental
Change Initiative. Co-authors of the study include Gopal Penny, then a postdoctoral student at Notre Dame and currently assistant professor at
the National University of Singapore; Davide Danilo Chiarelli and Maria Cristina Rulli at the Polytechnic University of Milan; Paolo D'Odorico at
the University of California, Berkeley; Nathaniel D. Mueller at Colorado
State University; Kyle Frankel Davis at the University of Delaware;
and Jampel Dell'Angelo at Vrije University Amsterdam.

The National Science Foundation partially funded the study.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Notre_Dame. Original
written by Jessica Sieff. Note: Content may be edited for style and
length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Davide Danilo Chiarelli, Paolo D'Odorico, Marc F. Mu"ller,
Nathaniel D.

Mueller, Kyle Frankel Davis, Jampel Dell'Angelo, Gopal Penny, Maria
Cristina Rulli. Competition for water induced by transnational
land acquisitions for agriculture. Nature Communications, 2022;
13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28077-2 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220321162708.htm

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