Climate Change and Water Scarcity: Growing risks for agricultural based economies in South Asia

In this chapter we first examined the impacts of changes in the irrigated and rain fed crops yields induced by climate change on the demand for water. We looked at the impacts of climate change on crop yields and found they vary across crops and agro ecological zones. In this experiment, we showed that, if water for irrigation is not limited, climate-induced crop yield changes increase the demand for irrigation, which 28 could help partially mitigate the impacts of climate change on crop and food production. From the first experiment, we also learned that while changes in irrigated and rain fed crop yields induced by climate change generate surges in demand for irrigation in some river basins, we also noted that they reduce demand for irrigation in some other river basins. We also showed that, if water for irrigation is not limited, climate-induced crop yield changes could still generate negative economy-wide impacts across South Asia.