Global human-water system

Abstract

Jeanne lives in Illinois in the US Midwest. She is an agricultural commodities trader who drives to work in the city of Normal every morning and listens to the local radio station on her car radio. She hears not just the local news but also the latest commodity prices and a segment on agricultural weather, not just in the Midwest but also across the agricultural regions of Brazil and Argentina, which catches Jeanne's attention. Why would someone living in the US Midwest be interested in the weather in Brazil and Argentina? People living in the US Midwest are enmeshed in a global agricultural system, of which the “breadbasket” that they live within forms an important region. What crops farmers grow and the areas allocated to soybeans, wheat, and corn are decisions impacted by world crop commodity prices, which are impacted by weather conditions, not just locally but also in other major food producing countries (e.g., United States, Brazil, Argentina). These global economic teleconnections can thus explain the keen interest that Jeanne has in the agricultural weather in Brazil and Argentina, or for that matter, in the conflict in Ukraine or the major drought in California. Through global markets, weather events and political issues elsewhere in the world have the potential to impact water management at the local level.