Evaluation of water footprint and water use efficiency in rice crop for sustainability

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

2 Agricultural Economics Department, Agriculture collage, Shiraz university, Shiraz. Iran

Abstract

Objectives: After wheat, rice has the most important role in human nutrition. Despite the vital importance of its cultivation, high water consumption and water shortage crisis, the sustainability of the cultivation of this grain has faced many problems. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the water footprint and water use efficiency of rice among the provinces in order to move towards crop sustainability.
Methods & Materials: In this study, water footprint index was used to calculate water use efficiency in rice production. For this purpose, first the water footprint components for the provinces of the country were calculated and then the water use efficiency was calculated.
Results: The results of calculating water footprint showed that the lowest water footprint is related to Mazandaran and Gilan provinces and the highest water footprint is related to South Khorasan and Sistan & Baluchestan provinces. Also, the highest and lowest amount of green water footprint is related to Gilan and South Khorasan province, respectively. The results of water use efficiency calculation showed that Mazandaran (0.511) and Gilan (0.422) had the highest efficiency and South Khorasan (0.135) and Sistan & Baluchestan (0.171) had the lowest efficiency.
Conclusion: By comparing the water footprint components among the provinces of the country, it is cleared that the ratio of blue, green and grey water footprint in total water footprint is 45-53%, 6-25% and 0-15%, respectively. Also, the total water footprint of the country was obtained in the range of 1958 and 2758 m3 per ton.

Keywords

References

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JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION
Volume 33, Issue 2
July 2023
Pages 207-225

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