Precision irrigation framework could enhance water productivity and reduce carbon emissions in China

Agricultural irrigation, energy use, and carbon emissions are interconnected, creating challenges for sustainable food production under climate and resource pressures. Optimizing irrigation water allocation is essential for improving productivity and reducing environmental impacts. Here, we develop a high-resolution water-food-energy-carbon optimization framework that allocates irrigation water across space and time to enhance resource efficiency in China. We combine multi-source observational and satellite datasets and examine future crop distribution scenarios to estimate irrigation demand and evaluate alternative allocation strategies. The framework quantifies effects on water productivity, yield stability, energy requirements, and greenhouse gas intensity. We find that increasing irrigation water productivity reduces energy consumption per unit of yield by about 37 percent and lowers carbon intensity by about 13 percent. Integrating irrigation with low-carbon energy further decreases energy use to about 190 kilowatt-hours per hectare. These findings show the potential of precision irrigation to support sustainable and lower-carbon agricultural development in China. Increased irrigation water productivity, crop yields stabilization, mitigation of energy consumption and carbon emissions are possible using a high-resolution water-food energy-carbon optimization framework that integrates multi-source datasets and future crop distribution scenarios.