The Human Impacts Database

A collection of useful numbers for quantifying the impacts of the human presence on Earth.

This quantity is a single measurement of the quantity at a given point in time (2000 – 2010).


Value:		(1.9 ± 0.9) × 10^-1 m³ / Mcal see this value in other units This is equivalent to... (1.9 ± 0.9) × 10² L / Mcal
HuID:		22356
Relevant Year(s):		2000 – 2010
Summary:		Volume of irrigation water needed to yield 1 megacalorie of pork given data from the USDA. See Fig. 2(B) of source for more information.
Method:		Reported uncertainty is the standard deviation of the quantity given annually-averaged data over the years 2000 — 2010. The reported value was calculated using formal error propagation techniques given the reported uncertainties of the individual datasets. These uncertainties are in moderate agreement with those estimated using Monte Carlo based bootstrapping estimates.
Source:		Eshel, G., Shepon, A., Makov, T., Milo, R. Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States. PNAS (2014)
Dataset:		Resource requirements per Mcal of livestock product and staple crops (eshel2014_fig2_data.csv) global resolution
Original Data License:		PNAS Open Access License
Added By:		gchure