Climate change is altering the timing and magnitude of snowmelt, which may either directly, or indirectly via global trade, affect agriculture and livelihoods dependent on snowmelt. Here we integrate sub-annual irrigation and snowmelt dynamics and a model of international trade to assess the global redistribution of snowmelt dependencies and risks under climate change. We estimate that 16% of snowmelt used for irrigation is for agricultural products traded globally, of which over 70% is from five countries. Globally, we observe a prodigious snowmelt dependence and risk diffusion, with particularly evident importing of products at-risk in western Europe. In Germany and U.K, respective local fraction of surface-water-irrigated agriculture supply exposed to snowmelt risks could increase from negligible to 16% and 10% under a 2°C warming. Our results reveal the trade-exposure of agricultural supplies, highlighting regions and crops whose consumption may be vulnerable to changing snowmelt even if their domestic production is not.

International trade separates consumption of goods from related environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land-use change (together referred to as “land-use emissions”). Through use of new emissions estimates and a multiregional input-output model, we evaluated land-use emissions embodied in global trade from 2004 to 2017. Annually, 27% of land-use emissions and 22% of agricultural land are related to agricultural products ultimately consumed in a different region from where they were produced. Roughly three-quarters of embodied emissions are from land-use change, with the largest transfers from lower-income countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Argentina to more industrialized regions such as Europe, the United States, and China. Mitigation of global land-use emissions and sustainable development may thus depend on improving the transparency of supply chains.