Global dataset on agricultural green water scarcity in 1990–2019

Agricultural green water scarcity (GWS)—restricted crop growth due to insufficient rainfall—is one of the key challenges in rainfed systems. It limits crop production, which can impact not only farmers' incomes but also lead to more major issues such as food insecurity, conflicts over water resources, and supply chain disruptions.

This study presents a new dataset on monthly GWS of the world’s major crops over the 1990–2019 period. The simulations are performed with a process-based global gridded crop model ACEA utilising best-to-date input datasets on climate, soil, and crop parameters. The results are compared to other relevant datasets across different spatial and temporal scales ensuring the robustness of the GWS estimates. The final files are provided as NetCDF rasters at a 5-arcminute spatial resolution (~8.3 km around the equator) per crop per month of each considered year. Such detailed segregation allows for detecting the effects of changing climate (including droughts and heat waves) on the availability of green water resources and, hence, on the GWS severity across different crops and regions.

This work provides a necessary foundation for further studies on the environmental and socio-economic implications of GWS, paving the way for solutions for more water-sustainable agrifood systems.