Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) as a sustainable alternative in the context of climate change

Daniel Mota-Rojas^1*Fabio Napolitano²Vivian Fischer³Arthur Fernandes Bettencourt⁴Adolfo Álvarez Macías¹Ada Braghieri⁵Alfonso J. Chay-Canul⁶Adriana Domínguez-Oliva¹Ayman Hassan Abd El-Aziz⁷Julio Martínez-Burnes⁸Ismael Hernández Avalos⁹Adriana Olmos-Hernández¹⁰Ricardo García-Herrera¹¹Fabiola Torres-Bernal¹Nancy José-Pérez¹Marcelo Ghezzi¹²

• ¹Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico City, Mexico
• ²Scuola di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari ed Ambientali, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy., Potenza, Italy
• ³Department of Animal Science, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil., Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
• ⁴Department of Animal Science, Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil., Santa María, Brazil
• ⁵Scuola di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari ed Ambientali, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy, Potenza, Italy
• ⁶División Académica de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Villahermosa, Mexico., Tabasco, Mexico
• ⁷Animal Husbandry and Animal Wealth Development Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Damanhour University, Damanhour, Egypt., Damanhour, Egypt
• ⁸Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Ciudad Victoria, Mexico
• ⁹Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlan, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Mexico
• ¹⁰Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitacion Luis Guillermo Ibarra Ibarra, Mexico City, Mexico
• ¹¹División Académica de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Villahermosa, Mexico., Tabasco, Mexico
• ¹²Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (UNCPBA), Argentina, Tandil, Argentina

Global warming poses a major challenge to livestock farming, both as a driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and as a source of heat stress (HS) that compromises animal welfare and productivity. Thresholds of the temperature-humidity index (THI) are shown to directly affect productivity and reproduction, with marked declines observed under severe HS conditions. This manuscript presents a narrative review with a structured literature search conducted between August and October 2025 across Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and ScienceDirect, using predefined keywords and inclusion criteria to identify relevant studies on buffalo physiology, management, and sustainability. The review highlights distinctive thermoregulatory traits of water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), including low hair follicle density, enlarged sweat glands, enhanced sebaceous activity, and a strong behavioral preference for immersion, which collectively support evaporative cooling under high thermal loads. From an environmental perspective, buffaloes contribute less methane (CH₄) per head and per unit of product compared to cattle, while maintaining efficiency in the utilization of low-quality forages. Overall, buffalo farming integrates physiological resilience with environmental advantages, positioning the species as a sustainable alternative in the context of climate change. Buffalo systems offer a climate-resilient livestock pathway with lower emissions per functional unit and robust thermoregulation, contingent on effective HS mitigation and genetic selection.