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IRRIGATION, ADAPTATION, AND WATER SCARCITYIman Haqiqi (7481798) 17 October 2019 (has links)
<p>Economics is about the management
of scare resources. In agricultural production, water stress and excess heat
are the main constraints. The three essays of this dissertation try to improve
our understandings of how climate and water resources interact with agricultural
markets, and how global changes in agricultural markets may affect water
resources. I construct empirical and simulation models to explain the interplay
between agriculture and water. These models integrate economic theories with environmental
sciences to analyze the hydroclimatic and economic information at different
geospatial scales in a changing climate. </p>
<p>In the first essay, I illustrate
how irrigation, as a potential adaptation channel, can reduce the volatility of
crop yields and year-on-year variations caused by the projected heat stress.
This work includes estimation of yield response to climate variation for
irrigated and rainfed crops; and global projections of change in the mean and
the variation of crop yields. I use my estimated response function to project
future yield variations using NASA NEX-GDDP climate data. I show that the
impact of heat stress on rainfed corn is around twice as big as irrigated
practices. </p>
<p>In the second essay, I establish
a framework for estimating the value of soil moisture for rainfed production. This
framework is an extension of Schlenker and Roberts (2009) model enabled by the
detailed soil moisture information available from the Water Balance Model (WBM).
An important contribution is the introduction of a cumulative yield production
function considering the daily interaction of heat and soil moisture. I use
this framework to investigate the impacts of soil moisture on corn yields in
the United States. However, this framework can be used for the valuation of
other ecosystem services at daily basis.</p>
<p>In the third essay, I have
constructed a model that explains how the global market economy interacts with
local land and water resources. This helps us to broaden the scope of global to
local analysis of systems sustainability. I have employed SIMPLE-G-W (a
Simplified International Model of agricultural Prices, Land use, and the
Environment- Gridded Water version) to explain the reallocation across regions.
The model is based on a cost minimization behavior for irrigation technology
choice for around 75,000 grid cells in the United States constrained by water
rights, water availability, and quasi-irreversibility of groundwater supply. This
model is used to examine the vulnerability of US land and water resources from
global changes.</p>
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