Tele-connection of consumption and agricultural use within conterminous United States: land, water and water scarcity

As a net agricultural exporter, the U.S. plays an important role in the global food trade market. In the meantime, agricultural land and water resources are unevenly distributed within the country, thus consumption of goods and services in one region may impose environmental pressures (e.g., water scarcity) on other regions via inter-state trade. To limit such indirect environmental impacts of consumption, it is important to understand the interconnections between consumption and land and water use for production that are geographically separated. Here, we apply land and water extended multi-regional input-output models to capture the regional virtual land and water transfer and estimate agricultural land and water footprints of the conterminous U.S. in 2017. Our results show that the Midwest states export a substantial amount of virtual agricultural land to other populated regions and countries. While the east coastline states import water-intensive products from other states, the water-stressed western and southwestern states, such as California, Idaho and Arizona, export significant amount of water-intensive crop products like fruits, hay and tree nuts to the eastern regions and the global market, which substantially contributed to their own local water scarcity. To alleviate water scarcity, land pressure and associated ecosystem impacts, water-scarce states may consider importing more water-intensive crop products from water-rich states in the Midwest.