Non-irrigated or

dryland agriculture relies on natural

rainfall to provide the water that's used by crops. In these systems,

rainfall variability has a big impact on agriculture. It affects yields. It affects what can be

grown, which types of crops. It affects the profitability

and the riskiness of farming. So in these

non-irrigated systems, rainfall is really one

of the key drivers. And that's why there's so

much interest and investment in irrigated agriculture. Irrigated agriculture

takes away some of the risk around whether or

not it will rain. So in irrigated

agriculture, water is supplied to increase

yields of crops and pastures. And it can be very profitable

if the water is available. There's various

types of irrigation used around the world. And these photos

show different types that are common in

parts of Australia. This photo is of a

sprinkler irrigation system. They're often used on what's

called a center-pivot system where they move

around in a circle. You can see from the shape

of these greener areas on the photo that these

areas have been irrigated by one of these center-pivot

sprinkler irrigation systems. But there's also

surface irrigation such as this photo

from cotton production in eastern Australian,

New South Wales. The area of agricultural

land that is irrigated has increased very substantially

over the last 50 or so. It's roughly doubled

since the early 1960s. As you can see here, it's

been a very steady increase, almost linear. In Australia, we've also

seen a significant increase in the area of

irrigated agriculture. Again, starting in 1960

moving through to about 2000, there was a slightly more

variable but steady increase. But since about 2000, the

area of irrigated land in agriculture

has flattened off, as you can see from the graph. Australia recognized

at that time that we were on a train

to using too much water. We had allocated

too much river water and too much groundwater

to agriculture. And so there were policies

put in place to change that. And that's why the area

of agriculture land that is irrigated has flattened

off, as you can see. That's sort of policy change

hasn't been the case so much in some other countries. This graph shows the

amount of groundwater that's being withdrawn from the

ground in several countries-- India, the United

States, and China. You can see in it the green

line for the United States shows slow but steady increase

in the amount of water used. In China, the

bottom line, there's been really quite a rapid

increase in groundwater used for irrigation. But in India, it's

been astonishing, an incredible increase in

the amount of water that's taken out of the ground. And this is clearly

not going to last. Sooner or later,

probably sooner, they're going to start running

out of water that's at a depth that can

be accessed by pumps. And this is going

to mean that there will be a big change

in the trajectory that they've been on

of ever-growing amounts of irrigation water. So in summary, most agricultural

land is non-irrigated. But irrigated land is more

productive per unit area provided that the

water is available. The area of irrigated

land and the amount of water used for irrigation

has grown rapidly. But of course, that

relies on the availability of water, which can't be

assured in the long term. And we'll see eventually,

some of the irrigated areas running out of water,

particularly out of groundwater as the years pass.