ArticleNature communications2025
Deepening water scarcity in breadbasket nations.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Addressing global hotspots of drought-related crop production losses.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Advances in Hygroscopic Polymer Gels toward Efficient Atmospheric Moisture Capture and Management.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- Global overlooked multidimensional water scarcity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Water is crucial for meeting sustainability targets, but its unsustainable use threatens human wellbeing and the environment. Past assessments of water scarcity (i.e., water demand in exceedance of availability) have often been spatially coarse and temporally limited, reducing their utility for targeting interventions. Here we perform a detailed monthly sub-basin assessment of the evolution of blue (i.e., surface and ground) water scarcity (years 1980-2015) for the world's three most populous countries - China, India, and the USA. Disaggregating by specific crops and sectors, we find that blue water demand rose by 60% (China), 71% (India), and 27% (USA), dominated by irrigation for a few key crops (alfalfa, maize, rice, wheat). We also find that unsustainable demand during peak months of use has increased by 101% (China), 82% (India), and 49% (USA) and that 32% (China), 61% (India), and 27% (US) of sub-basins experience at least 4 months of scarcity. These findings demonstrate that rising water demands are disproportionately being met by water resources in already stressed regions and provide a basis for targeting potential solutions that better balance the water needs of humanity and nature.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.