ArticlePNAS nexus2025
Widely cited global irrigation statistics lack empirical support.
Article in PNAS nexus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Widely cited global irrigation statistics lack empirical support.PNAS nexus · 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
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A prevailing notion in sustainability science is that irrigated agriculture underpins global food and water security because it accounts for 40% of crop production and 70% of freshwater withdrawals. Through a network citation analysis of 3,500 documents, we reveal that this belief has spread through the literature with minimal empirical support: 60-80% of all citation paths lead to sources that lack supporting data or that do not even contain the 40 or 70% numbers. We also demonstrate that these figures mask a much more uncertain contribution of irrigation to global crop production and water withdrawals, which can lie anywhere between 18-50 and 45-90%, respectively. These ranges should be understood as lower bounds on the true uncertainty. Our findings underscore the need to rigorously evaluate foundational claims in sustainability science and embrace ambiguity to produce robust research and policy-making.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.