Irrigation is more than irrigating: agricultural green water interventions contribute to blue water depletion and the global water crisis

Reflecting on the 2023 assertion by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water that the depletion of blue water by irrigation contributes to the global water crisis, we critique two previous contributions by one of its authors, Johan Rockström. First, to bridge agro-meteorological drought, rainfed (green water) farmers should irrigate. If not regulated, this increases water withdrawals and depletion. Second, the continuum of agricultural water management is a field-scale emphasis on rainfall and/or irrigating to top up soil moisture. This emphasis hinders taking a multi-scale irrigation systems approach to resolve blue water depletion and its inequitable impacts.