Groundwater depletion is becoming a global threat to food security, yet the ultimate impacts of depletion on agricultural production and the efficacy of available adaptation strategies remain poorly quantified. We use high-resolution satellite and census data from India, the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, to quantify the impacts of groundwater depletion on cropping intensity, a crucial driver of agricultural production. Our results suggest that, given current depletion trends, cropping intensity may decrease by 20% nationwide and by 68% in groundwater-depleted regions. Even if surface irrigation delivery is increased as a supply-side adaptation strategy, which is being widely promoted by the Indian government, cropping intensity will decrease, become more vulnerable to interannual rainfall variability, and become more spatially uneven. We find that groundwater and canal irrigation are not substitutable and that additional adaptation strategies will be necessary to maintain current levels of production in the face of groundwater depletion.

地下水枯竭正在成为全球粮食安全的威胁，但枯竭对农业生产的最终影响以及现有适应战略的有效性仍然难以量化。我们使用来自世界上最大的地下水消费国印度的高分辨率卫星和人口普查数据来量化地下水枯竭对耕作强度的影响，而耕作强度是农业生产的关键驱动力。我们的研究结果表明，鉴于目前的枯竭趋势，全国范围内的种植强度可能会降低 20%，而地下水枯竭地区的种植强度可能会降低 68%。即使增加地表灌溉作为印度政府正在广泛推广的供给侧适应战略，种植强度也会降低，更容易受到年际降雨变化的影响，并且在空间上变得更加不平衡。