Climate Change and Irrigation-Related Water Productivity in Arid Agriculture: Evidence from GCC Countries

Abstract

This study examines how multiple dimensions of climate variability are associated with irrigation-related water productivity in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over 2000–2023. Water productivity is measured as economic output generated per unit of freshwater withdrawal and is interpreted as an economy-wide proxy for water-use efficiency rather than a crop-specific biophysical measure. Using a balanced panel of 144 country-year observations, the study combines seven annual climate indicators from NASA POWER—temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, relative humidity, soil moisture, wind speed, and solar radiation—with socioeconomic and agricultural indicators from the World Bank. A two-way fixed effects model is estimated with controls for agricultural land, rural population, renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, GDP per capita, and agricultural employment. The results show that temperature, evapotranspiration, wind speed, and solar radiation are negatively associated with water productivity, whereas precipitation, relative humidity, and soil moisture are positively associated with it. Soil moisture and temperature display the largest estimated effects among the climate variables in the baseline specification. The analysis further finds that the estimated climate–water-productivity relationship differs in magnitude between the pre-COVID (2000–2019) and post-COVID (2020–2023) periods. Interaction models indicate that soil moisture, precipitation, and relative humidity partially moderate the adverse effects of temperature and evapotranspiration. These findings remain broadly stable across alternative dependent variables, lagged climate specifications, alternative estimators, and leave-one-country-out analyses. The study contributes GCC-wide evidence on the joint and conditional effects of climate variability and highlights the importance of climate-informed irrigation scheduling, soil-moisture monitoring, and precision water-management technologies for strengthening agricultural resilience in arid environments.