Data for Melting Mountain Glaciers Will Shrink Grain Harvests in China and India

Major Asian River Basins Vulnerable to Glacial Melt (table)

Top Ten Producers of Corn, Wheat, Rice, and Total Grains, 2007 (table)

Snow and Ice Melt Around the World Affecting Food and Water Security (table)

 

Major Asian River Basins Vulnerable to Glacial Melt
River	Population	Basin Area	Cropland	Dependence on Glacial Meltwater
	Million	Thousand Square Kilometers	Percent
Tarim	8	1,152	2	Very high
Syr Darya	20	763	22	Very high
Amu Darya	21	535	22	Very high
Indus	178	1,082	30	Very high
Ganges	407	1,016	72	High
Brahmaputra	118	651	29	High
Yangtze	368	1,722	48	High
Yellow	147	945	30	High
Salween	6	272	6	Moderate
Mekong	57	806	38	Moderate
Source: U.N. Environment Programme, Global Outlook for Ice and Snow (Nairobi, Kenya: 2007), p. 131.

Top Ten Producers of Corn, Wheat, Rice, and Total Grains, 2007
Corn		Wheat		Rice		Total Grain*
Country	Quantity	Country	Quantity	Country	Quantity	Country	Quantity
	Million Tons		Million Tons		Million Tons		Million Tons
United States	332	China	106	China	130	United States	414
China	145	India	76	India	94	China	389
Brazil	53	United States	56	Indonesia	34	India	206
Mexico	23	Russia	49	Bangladesh	28	Russia	79
Argentina	22	Pakistan	23	Vietnam	23	Brazil	68
India	17	Canada	20	Thailand	19	Canada	48
Canada	12	Kazakhstan	17	Myanmar	11	Argentina	43
South Africa	11	Argentina	16	Philippines	10	Indonesia	41
Ukraine	7	Turkey	16	Brazil	8	Mexico	33
Indonesia	7	Iran	15	Japan	8	Pakistan	30
World Total	770	World Total	605	World Total	423	World Total	2,084
% China and India	21.0	% China and India	30.1	% China and India	52.8	% China and India	28.5
* Total grain includes barley, corn, millet, mixed grain, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, and wheat.
Source: Compiled by Earth Policy Institute from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Production, Supply and Distribution, electronic database at www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline, updated 11 March 2008.

Snow and Ice Melt Around the World Affecting Food and Water Security
Snow or Ice Body	Location	Description
Gangotri Glacier	Himalayas	The Gangotri Glacier, which provides up to 70 percent of the water in the Ganges, is retreating more than 35 meters per year, nearly twice as fast as 20 years ago. If it disappears, the Ganges will become seasonal, ceasing to flow during the dry season. The Ganges Basin is home to 407 million people and contains 40 percent of India's irrigated cropland.
Tibetan Glaciers	Tibet-Qinghai Plateau	These glaciers that provide water to the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Brahmaputra rivers are melting at an accelerating rate and two-thirds could be gone by 2060. This threatens China's massive rice harvest, more than half of which is irrigated by the Yangtze River.
Karakorum, Pamirs and Tien Shan Glaciers	Central Asia	Glaciers in the mountains of central Asia provide more than 70 percent of the water in the Indus and Amu Darya rivers. Glacial area has dropped by 35-50 percent since the 1930s and hundreds of small glaciers have already vanished. The Indus is critical to Pakistan's food and water security - more than three quarters of Pakistanis live in the Indus basin and its water irrigates 80 percent of the nation's cropland.
Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya Ice Caps	East Africa	Ice fields on Africa’s highest mountain shrank by 80 percent over the past century, with 33 percent from 1989 to 2000 alone. Mt. Kenya has lost half its glaciers, depleting flow in local rivers that two million people in and around Nairobi depend on for water
Andean Glaciers	Peru and Bolivia	Glaciers in Peru and Bolivia lost a third of their area between 1970 and 2006, and the Quelccaya glacier in Peru is retreating as fast as two meters a week. 70 percent of Peru's population lives in the coastal zone, where 80 percent of water resources come from snow and ice melt. In Bolivia, the Chacaltaya glacier supplies drinking water to the 1.6 million people in La Paz and El Alto but will disappear within 15 years at the current rate of melt.
Rocky Mountain Snowpack	Western United States	85 percent of the flow in the Colorado River, the Southwest's primary source of irrigation water, comes from snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains. This snowpack is decreasing in area and is melting earlier as the climate warms.
Sierra Nevada Snowpack	California	Snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada provides irrigation water to the Central Valley, the world's fruit and vegetable basket. This snowpack is already melting earlier in the spring and is projected to decrease by 30-70 percent by the end of the century
Source: Compiled by Earth Policy Institute, March 2008, from sources including WWF, IPCC, UNEP, and IWMI and other literature.