Irrigation energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions of maize production in Mexico

ABSTRACT

Maize is the most important crop grown in Mexico, with more than one-third of total production coming from irrigated fields. We compute irrigation energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions of different irrigated maize systems in Mexico. Calculations were based on National Agriculture and Forestry Census 2007 microdata, irrigation water requirements estimated from state-level climate data, and energy and emission coefficients from the literature. Weighted average irrigation energy and related emissions are in the range of 1.0–31.6 GJ/ha and 62.0–2,019.9 kg CO₂e/ha, respectively, while country-scale estimates amount to 4.8 PJ and 305.2 Gg CO₂e.

KEYWORDS:

• Groundwater extraction
• energy use
• irrigation
• greenhouse gas emissions
• Mexico

Acknowledgements

The first author acknowledges support from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) through the National Scholarship Programme for Graduate Studies (scholarship no. 391760). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the journal editor for their constructive comments to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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